


Lightning Before the Thunder

by na_na_na_batcat



Category: DCU, Shazam! (2019), Superman - All Media Types
Genre: (with fandoms outside of DC), Action/Adventure, Dimension Travel, Friendship, Gen, Not a Crossover, the dimensions are other planes of existence/worlds in the DC universe
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-16
Updated: 2019-07-14
Packaged: 2020-05-01 19:07:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 22,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19183876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/na_na_na_batcat/pseuds/na_na_na_batcat
Summary: After being flung into another dimension by a bunch of cultists, Billy finds himself on a strange and dangerous jaunt across the cosmos with none other than Superman himself as the two work together to try and find their way back home.(or my take on how Billy met Superman which got really out of hand really fast)





	1. Shazam meet Superman

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> During a museum heist, Billy receives a surprise visitor from Metropolis.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This first chapter/the original idea for this story was heavily inspired by the comic Superman/Shazam!: First Thunder (hence the title from the Imagine Dragons song).
> 
> However, after this chapter the similarities pretty much end as I go off in my own direction (there's no dimension/world travel in the comic) but it's a really great comic and I highly recommend checking it out if you can.

Billy crouched in the shadows of an alley across the street from the McKeon History Museum in Philadelphia. He raised a pair of binoculars to his eyes and scanned the museum building. Spotting nothing out of the ordinary, he lowered the binoculars with a sigh and leaned back against the old brick wall behind him. He pulled his cellphone from his coat pocket and clicked on the screen.

It was 2:07 in the morning on a Wednesday. He had to be up for school in just a few short hours. He used the binoculars to check the building again. Nothing had changed. He wasn’t surprised. He had been there since a little after midnight, and by this time he wasn’t honestly expecting anything to happen and was just counting the minutes until three o’clock, the agreed upon time his stake out would end.

 

There had been seven robberies of museums across the country in as many weeks. The last robbery had been at the Museum of Natural History in Metropolis. An article in the _Daily Planet_ reported that Superman had confronted the museum thieves, who turned out to be some sort of cultists possessing powers which allowed them to summon a golem like creature that was able to keep Superman distracted while they made their escape with a number of ancient Russian artifacts.

Mary had done some digging and found that all of the robberies included Russian artifacts with occult ties. McKeon happened to have an exhibit on Russia featuring some artifacts which Mary suspected would pique the interest of the thieves, and anyone who was able to get the better of Superman was serious business.

 

He, Mary, Freddy, and Pedro had agreed to take turns watching the museum during the night while the others covered for them at home. Darla and Eugene were exempt from stake out duty because of their age. They had both whined about being left out, but they didn’t know how lucky they were. Sitting outside for hours in the cold staring at a building while nothing happened wasn’t exactly what Billy would call a good time. Billy checked the building again. Nothing. Billy checked the time again. 2:10. Damn.

When Freddy gushed about how awesome being a superhero was he neglected to mention the boredom of late night stake outs. This was Billy’s second turn at watching the McKeon Museum, and the sixth night overall they’d had someone stake out the museum and had nothing happen. Billy was convinced nothing was going to happen, that the cultists didn’t plan on targeting the museum in Philadelphia.

 

Billy raised the binoculars, more out of habit than anything else at this point, and scanned the building. There was something. There were dark shapes moving on the rooftop. Billy’s breath caught in his throat. He focused on the roof. Those were people dressed in dark clothing slipping inside through a skylight. Billy dropped the binoculars and pulled out his phone. He shot a quick text to Freddy:  ‘it’s happening’

Billy stood, a smirk stretching across his face. Finally, some action. “Shazam!” A crack of thunder split the heavens, and a bolt of lightning shot down from a cloudless sky. The lightning struck Billy transforming him into the hero Shazam, champion of the gods. Billy kicked off the ground and flew towards the museum, his cape fluttering in the wind behind him.

 

... Across town in the Vasquez home, Freddy mumbled something unintelligible in his sleep as he rolled over in bed. On his bedside table, his phone buzzed as the screen lit up: ‘one unread text message from Billy’ ...

 

Billy entered the museum through the same skylight as the thieves and made his way towards the exhibit on Russia. As he neared the room, he could make out the sound of voices. He hovered a few inches above the ground and stayed in the shadows of the walls as he glided closer and peered into the room. There were seven men and women packing artifact into crates.

 

“. . .finally the Sabbaccian channeling idol is ours,” an auburn haired man with a full beard was saying as he lifted from a display case a creepy looking totem with red eyes, “with this, my brothers and sisters, we will reap the fruits of our labors. Soon, the powers that flows from the proverbial River Styx will be at our—”

“I hate to ruin what’s obviously a very special moment for you guys,” Billy sauntered out of the shadows and into the open. Seven pairs of eyes were immediately zeroed in on him. He placed his hands on his hips and smirked, exuding confidence. “But you’re only allowed to take stuff from the gift shop. Maybe you can find a nice keychain replica of Mr. Creepy Idol.”

“Another costumed interloper,” the auburn haired man, clearly the leader of these weirdos, grimaced. “Very well,” he reached into a small pouch at his waist and pulled from it an ornate staff nearly as long as he was tall.

Billy’s eyes widened. “That’s some Mary Poppins bullshit.”

 

“You should be warned. . .” the cultist leader said, raising the staff high. The staff had some glowing blue runes on it and was giving off a blue smoke. Three of the other cultists had pulled out identical staffs, which were similarly glowing and smoking.

The smoke from the multiple staffs swirled together, compressing into a dense sphere between Billy and the cultists. Billy raised his arms, hands closing into fists, and shifted his weight as he prepared for a fight. Because yeah, this looked like it was about to get ugly. “. . .we’re getting quite adept at dispatching the likes of you!”

 

All four cultists slammed down their staffs.

With a great bang the sphere of smoke expanded.

 

The smoke swept over Billy, bringing with it the smell of rotting eggs. “Ugh, gross,” Billy coughed as he waved a hand before his face. Two echoing roars which shook the walls had him freezing in place. Billy looked over.

Where the sphere of smoke had been there were now two hulking creatures made of putrid green slime. They were bipedal with hunched backs, elongated arms, and fish like heads with a pair of glowing wide set eyes. They were also a good fifteen feet tall, the tops off their bodies brushing the ceiling and leaving behind a streak of slime in their wake as they lumbered towards Billy.

 

“Y’know what they say,” Billy hopped from foot to foot before leaping into the air and speeding towards the creatures. “The bigger they are the harder they—” With a rattling croak one of the creatures opened its mouth and emitted a burnt orange ray which struck Billy square in the face. The force of the blow sent Billy tumbling head over heels through the air. He crashed through two walls and the front doors of the museum before finally slamming into the concrete of the parking lot. _“—hit! Ow. . .”_ Billy groaned as he pushed himself up onto his forearms.

 

“Need a hand?” a voice asked from above him. Billy looked up and. . .

“Holy sh—moley!” Billy pushed off the ground to hover in front of: “Superman?”

The man of steel himself nodded, “and you must be--?”

“Superman? You’re Superman!” Billy exclaimed, a laugh bubbling from his throat.

“Yes, that’s me,” Superman, _freaking Superman_ , replied with an amused smile.

 

“Oh man, this is so great! Fre—uh, my brother isn’t gonna believe this! He’s a huge fan. I mean, he’s a geek about all superheroes, but you’re like his all-time favorite. He’s gonna be so jealous. Wait. Would you be willing to sign something? For my brother. It would mean the world to him.”

Billy started patting himself down in search of a pen and paper he obviously didn’t have. A hand landed on his shoulder, halting his movements—and holy shit that was Superman’s hand on his shoulder. “Why don’t you introduce me to your brother, and I sign something for him personally?”

“ _Seriously?”_ Billy gasped. “You’d really do that?”

“I’d be happy to,” Superman smiled. There was a crash and a roar as the two slime creatures broke through the wall surrounding the front doors of the museum. “Though I’m afraid it’ll have to wait till after we’ve dealt with these fellas.”

“Right, of course. How could I forget about the fifteen foot snot monsters?”

 

Said snot monsters charged at them. Billy and Superman met them head on. Billy turned in the air and slammed his feet into one of the creature’s chest with enough force to send it flying across the parking lot. Superman punched the second creature in the jaw, and it went careening into its fellow just as the other was trying to get up. “How about I take the one on the right,” Superman suggested as he came to hover beside Billy.

“And I get the one on the left!” Billy exclaimed, leaping forward to slam into one of the slime creatures.

“Sounds like a plan,” Superman chuckled.

 

Superman grabbed the other creature and lifted its struggling form into the air. “These bad boys wouldn’t happen to belong to some history buff cultists?” he called. He threw the creature back towards the ground where it hit with a thunderous impact.

“Yeah, some real A-class weirdos,” Billy punched the creature he was grappling with. He grimaced at the way his hand sunk slightly into its slimy body. “Ew,” Billy leapt back, lightning sparking around his hands. “They’re the ones who have been hitting up museums across the country, aren’t they?” Billy asked as he brought his hands together and shot a bolt of lightning at the creature.

The creature shrieked and stumbled backwards, black smoke rising from its shoulder where the lightning had struck. So they weren’t impervious to lightning. Good to know.

“They sure are. That’s why I—”

 

The creature Superman had slammed into the ground shot a burnt orange beam at him, striking him in the chest, but unlike with Billy the blow didn’t just send Superman careening backwards. Instead, an opaque crystalline substance of the same color as the beam formed around Superman’s head and chest. “Superman!” Billy shouted as the man fell to the ground in a crouch, straining to break free of the crystal.

The slime monster that had attacked Superman was quickly advancing on him. “Hold on!” Billy darted forward. He grabbed the arm of the creature he had been fighting and spun around. “I’ve got your back!” he released the creature, and it arced through the air to collide with the one advancing on Superman.

 

“It’s alright. It’s okay,” Billy zipped up to Superman’s crouched form. His eyes dart over the chuck of crystal encasing the man’s upper body. “Okay. I can handle this. Just, just hold still a sec.” Billy drew back his fist, tongue poking out from the corner of his mouth. He ignored Superman’s gaze watching him through the opaque crystal. He could do this. No big deal. No problem. He slammed his fist down. The crystal shattered. He laughed in delight. He did it!

 

“You alright?” Billy asked, offering him a hand. Superman took it and got to his feet. “Need a second to catch your breath?”

 “I’m alright,” Superman’s gaze darted over Billy’s shoulder. He grabbed Billy by the shoulders and moved him to the side. “I never get winded!” He inhaled deeply and exhaled a freezing breath. Billy watched as the freezing gust hit one of the slime monsters and froze it solid.

“Holy moley that’s awesome!” Billy exclaimed hovering up to the frozen monster. He noted that its eyes had gone dark.

There was a rattling croak. “Heads up!” Superman called. Billy looked over to see orange energy bubbling in the remaining creature’s maw.

“Got it!” Billy flew into the creature’s path, lightning sparking between his fingers.

 

Billy brought his hands up and shot a bolt of lightning at the creature just as an orange ray emitted from its mouth. The competing forces met with a crack of thunder. He gritted his teeth and focused. The bolt increased in intensity, cleaving through the energy ray and striking the creature in the chest. The monster shrieked as it was propelled several feet through the air before slamming into the ground where it dissipated into a puddle of lifeless goop.

 

“So. . .the crazy cultists used this as a distraction to escape didn’t they?” Billy commented as he floated back towards Superman.

Superman tilted his head to the side, listening. “No. They’re still in the museum,” a slight grimace flashed across his face, “they’re chanting. It doesn’t sound good.”

“Well we’d best break up the party then,” Billy replied. He flew through the gaping hole that had been blown through the front wall of the museum.

“They’re below.” Superman quickly caught up with him and lead the way.

 

Billy followed Superman past several exhibits. As they flew, Billy wondered where Freddy and the others were, why they had never shown up after his text message. . .Freddy probably slept through it. Billy wouldn’t give him too much grief for that as he was sure Freddy would beat himself up enough over having missed a chance to team up with Superman.

They arrived at a pair of heavy metal door with a sign reading ‘for employees only.’ Superman pushed the doors open effortlessly, and they entered an industrial stairwell. They flew down to the lowest level and out into a storage room. Among the rows of large crates they found the cultists, and it didn’t just sound bad it looked bad.

 

A red symbol had been marked on the ground. It was bubbling and glowing and giving off dark smoke. Next to a crate, one of the cultists was slumped over in an awkward position, unmoving. The symbol had not been made with paint. Five of the cultists stood around the symbol chanting in a language Billy didn’t recognize, but the sound of it was _wrong_ like nails on a chalkboard times a thousand.

The leader stood in the middle of the symbol holding the creepy idol in his hands. He was in the middle of some grand speech: “. . .Asmodeus! Createis! Accept this sacrifice and in exchange bestow upon me your great gifts!” But Billy couldn’t focus on that because—

“Holy shit! Why are you guys _naked_?” he shouted.

 

There was a slight stutter in the chanting, but the cultists soon picked it back up like nothing had happened. The leader looked at them. “You are too late,” He stated, a manic light in his eyes. “What has been set in motion will not be stopped. The Dark Champion will rise and raze this world in a blaze of—”

“Heard enough,” Billy flew at the leader, intending to slam into him. He grunted when he entered the confines of the blood symbol, and his senses were immediately assaulted by a devastating blow of vertigo. He fell to the ground at the leader’s feet, hands and knees disappearing into the blanket of black smoke which coated the ground.

“Wait!” Superman leapt after him, also entering the symbol and staggering.

“He is come,” the leader grinned, it was all teeth. He gripped the idol: _“Sabbac!”_

 

The eyes of the idol blazed with unholy light. The leader screamed as he gazed into their depths. A guttural howl sounded from below, and the earth trembled. The symbol erupted into a column of dark energy. Billy had a second to process excruciating pain, but not one to draw in the breath needed to scream before darkness took his consciousness.

 

* * *

 

There was something scratching at his face. Sharp claws pricked at the tender skin around his eyes. Billy sucked in a breath and turned his head away. He blinked his eyes opened and came face to face with a strange reptilian creature with human eyes. Seeing he was awake, the creature hissed at him and a neck frill flared around its head. “Shit!” Billy flailed, knocking the monkey-sized creature from its perch on his chest. The creature shrieked as it hopped on the craggy ground, a pair of leathery wings unfurling to help it steady itself.

 

The creature hissed and lunged at Billy, snapping at him with razor sharp teeth. “No,” Billy scrambled back. “Shoo,” He raised a hand, making a finger gun, and shot a small bolt of lightning at the ground before the creature. The creature fell backwards with a dismayed cry. It rolled to its feet, and its gaze shot to him.

Its green human eyes were brimming with loathing: complex and intelligent. A chill ran down Billy’s spine.

“Get away!” he shouted, firing a bolt of lightning straight at the monster. The monster shrieked and leapt into the air, flying away with its bat-like wings.

 

Billy watched it go, and as it became clear it didn’t intend on coming back his focus turned to the sky: the black sky. It was roiling with storm clouds so dark they looked more like smoke, could actually be smoke for all he knew. Occasionally, they lit with forks of red lightning unlike anything Billy had ever seen and which were followed by booms of thunder that sounded more like the roars of an ancient beast. A hot wind struck him in the face and pulled at his cape. It brought with it the stench of rotting meat and the sound of countless voices screaming and sobbing in agony.

Billy shot to his feet, breath coming fast. He looked around but all he saw was a wasteland of barren rock occasionally lit by unchecked pit fires. The sobbing winds swirled around him. His hands clenched and unclenched. His eyes darted around. _What the fuck was this place?_ His gaze lighted upon a figure pushing himself to his feet some twenty yards from him. The ‘S’ symbol on the man’s chest was illuminated by a dancing of red lightning in the dark skies above.

 

Relief swept over Billy at the sight of the familiar figure. “Superman!” he called, waving his hands over his head.

Superman’s gaze snapped towards him, and in less than a second, the man was standing before him. “Are you hurt?” he asked.

“I’m good,” Billy shook his head. “But where are we?”

Superman looked around, brow furrowed as he took in the strange and horrifying landscape. His jaw jumped as the screaming winds swept past them. “definitely not Kansas.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed!! I'm very excited to share this story with y'all!!


	2. Fire and Brimstone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cast into a hellish realm, Billy and Superman work to find a way out, but an encounter with the powerful Lady Blaze and Lord Satanus - who claim a curious relation to the Wizard who granted Billy his powers - proves a major obstacle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who has commented!! Your comments really make my day!! <3

“We should move,” Superman stated. “We need to find a way out of here, and we won’t be doing that standing around. Just a matter of choosing a direction to head in. . .”

Billy nodded as he slowly turned in a circle and looked out unto the horizon. It was the same in every direction, barren rock speckled with fires as far as the eye could see, and yet. . . “That way,” he pointed confidently in a direction that looked the same as any other, but something in his gut pulled at him, told him that was the way to go.

“Why that way?” Superman asked.

“Dunno,” Billy shrugged. “Just. . .feels right.”

“I can’t say anything about this place feels right to me, but that way looks as promising as any other,” Superman replied.

 

They both leapt into the air and began to fly in the direction Billy had chosen. They kept low to the ground as to not risk getting close the endless electrical storm which raged in the black clouds above. The screaming winds were a constant companion, and set Billy’s nerves on edge. He didn’t know where they were, but he knew for a fact it wasn’t a place he wanted to spend a second longer in than necessary. Hopefully finding a way out wouldn’t be too difficult.

 

“Y’know, I never did catch your name,” Superman commented some minutes later.

“What?” Billy looked over at him, having been pulled from his swirling thoughts.

“You’ve been called so many things by the media and. . .on your Youtube channel, I’m not actually sure what I should call you,” he explained.

“Oh, superhero name. Yeah, it’s still kind of a work in progress.” Billy thought it should be Shazam, but that brought with it some obvious problems. Like the fact Billy couldn’t tell Superman to call him that. “You can just pick one. I don’t care.”

“If you say so, Thundercrack,” Superman replied, a playful gleam in his eyes.

“Ugh, no,” Billy groaned. “You can pick any name but that one.”

“Captain Sparklefingers?” Superman suggested with a grin.

 

Billy was pretty sure Superman was still teasing him with the suggestion but. . .Billy remembered the others showing up at the Rock of Eternity when he was all but defeated by Dr. Sivana and the Sins. _‘His name is Captain Sparklefingers!’_ Freddy had declared after striking Sivana with his replica batarang. _‘And we’re gonna keep throwing things at your big, fat, ugly head until you let our brother go!’_ They had been armed with nothing but what they could find in the house, just kids not yet bestowed with the Wizard’s powers, yet they had risked their lives to try and save his.

 

“It’s not Thundercrack,” Billy shrugged.

“Alright, Captain Sparklefingers it is then,” Superman laughed and for a moment the screaming winds didn’t seem so loud.

“Hey, you shouldn’t throw stones in a glass house, Superman,” Billy replied, grinning.

“And what’s that supposed to me?” Superman looked over at him, eyes narrowing. For a moment, Billy worried about offending him, but there was still an amused curve to the man’s mouth.

“Only that Superman isn’t super original,” he stated cheekily and was rewarded with a surprised bark of laughter.

“I didn’t chose the name,” Superman said.

“What about the giant ‘S’ on your chest?” Billy asked.

“It’s not an ‘S.’ It’s a symbol which meant hope on my homeworld of Krypton,” Superman answered with the air of someone who had repeated that statement a lot. He probably had as Billy had heard about the true meaning of the symbol more than once before, but he had honestly always dismissed it as something made up by the media.

 

Superman’s gaze had become far-off and pensive as his hand lightly brushed over the symbol—a symbol of hope from a dead world. The winds howled, loud as ever, carrying with them the stench of decay, of death.

“Well you’re lucky it looks like an ‘S’ and not an ‘X.’ Then you’d of been saddled with a really silly name, like, I don’t know X-Rayman or, or Xylophoneman,” Billy babbled.

Superman blinked and looked over at him, severe expression softening. “That first one doesn’t sound so bad.” Superman’s gaze flicked past him. “Over there!” he pointed.

Billy turned, eyes tracking where Superman was gesturing to. A firepit with three shadowed figures moving around it. “Maybe they can tell us the way out of here or at least where here is!” Billy suggested excitedly, flying towards the fire with all the speed of Mercury.

“Captain, wait!” Superman followed after him.

 

As Billy arrived above the fire, he quickly realized something wasn’t right, and his excitement turned to trepidation. The figures. . .they didn’t look right. They had also spotted him and didn’t seem all too happy to have company. They started shouting at him, and Billy picked up some rather colorful curses before an actual flaming pitchfork was hurled at him. “Woah!” he swerved out of the way of the weaponized farm tool.

“I don’t think these fellas are friendly,” Superman commented, catching the pitchfork and putting out the flames with a flick of his wrist.

“Fuck away, cock-munchers!” was shouted from below.

Billy glanced at Superman. “You don't say?”

 

“Still they may have information,” Superman stated as he floated down to land lightly at the edge of the circle of light created by the fire. “We aren’t looking for trouble. We just want to talk,” he said, voice level. Billy landed beside him, impressed by how calm he appeared. Billy felt uneasy himself as he observed the three figures gathered around the fire.

“And I want to die suffocated between the tits of a succubus after which she will consume my corpse for nourishment,” this pleasant statement came from a human-sized praying mantis with a man’s head, gaunt and aging.

“And I want my pitchfork back,” said a stout creature which looked like someone had stuck eyes and a mouth on a giant fleshy ball and attached the arms and legs of a wrestler to it.

“We all want things,” the mantis stated. He barred rotting teeth at them, blood dripping from his cracked and torn lips. “Our wants are worth less than shit.”

 

The third figure did not speak and Billy’s eyes skittered around the unclearly defined borders of its being, unable to focus on it for more than a second or two without his head beginning to pound. Billy noted that Superman was also avoiding looking directly at the third figure.

 

Superman cleared his throat. “Look, we just want to know where we are.”

“Got pus for brains? Fuck you don’t know where you are?” the stout one sneered

“Can you tell us or not?” Superman demanded.

“Depends. What will you give for the information?” the mantis replied.

Superman blinked slowly as he considered that. Billy grinned, “Your pitchfork!”

“That useless thing? Shove it up your ass,” the mantis scoffed.

“Speak for yourself, insect!” the stout one struck the mantis with one of his meaty hands.

The mantis hit the ground with a shriek. “Wretched oaf! I’ll flay your hand to the bone!”

“Not if I ground you to paste first!” the stout one snarled.

“Pitchfork!” Billy interrupted.

 

The stout one turned to look at him, and Billy’s voice stuttered out. The creature’s bloodshot and watery eyes were forced eternally open by several hooks dug into his flesh, and his jagged teeth were constantly exposed because his lips and the surrounding skin had been torn away—flayed.

 

“Tell us where we are, and it’s yours,” Superman said.

“The sixth circle, several leagues outside of Dis,” the stout one answered.

“The sixth circle of?” Billy pressed though he dreaded the answer.

“Fuck your mother and your father, you know of what!” the stout one shouted.

“The sixth circle of what?” Superman repeated.

“Of Hell! You pedantic dick!” the stout one exclaimed, and confronted by such otherworldly and horrific - hellish - landscapes and monsters it wasn’t that difficult to believe that was truth or as good as. “My pitchfork,” the. . .the demon demanded, sticking out one of his muscular arms.

 

“We don’t belong here,” Superman stated as he tossed the pitchfork to the demon.

“You’re a liar,” The mantis snorted. He pushed himself up and spat on the ground. He looked at them with pale yellow eyes. “We all belong here.”

**_“No,”_** the sound of countless overlapping voices speaking in unison came from the third demon. Billy’s eyes skittered around it, never looking directly at it. The other two demons had no such problem.

“The fuck you mean ‘no?’” the mantis demanded, looking directly into the impossible form of the third.

**_“They do not belong. They are living.”_ **

 

The two demons looked at Superman and Billy, considering them in a new light. “By Lucifer’s missing dick, they are alive!” exclaimed the stout one.

“You shitheads must of fucked up big time to end up here,” the mantis said.

“How we ended up here isn’t important. It’s how we get out that I’m concerned with,” Superman replied.

“You don’t,” the mantis stated. “This is Hell, there is no escape.”

“There must be a way,” Billy insisted.

“What part of no escape isn’t getting through your thick, dumb skull?” the mantis sneered.

“Just because you don’t know of a way doesn’t mean there isn’t one,” Superman stated.

“Why you—”

**_“There is a way.”_ **

“What is it?” Superman asked, gaze fixed a good two feet to the right of the third demon.

**_“Your companion knows.”_ **

“What? Me?” Billy exclaimed. “I don’t—”

 

Suddenly he found himself staring into the depths of the third demon, into angles and curves which his mind would tear itself apart trying to make sense of, and among those impossible geometries he found a face. . .he found his own face staring back at him with dead eyes. The mouth of the facsimile fell open, too wide, unto a void and from that void the demon spoke with a thousand voices and amongst those voices Billy heard his own. **_“We know.”_**

The screaming winds sounded different. “Captain!” Superman was in his field of vision, hands on his shoulders. His concerned expression cut off the horrors of the void, and Billy realized that the screaming winds sounded different because he was screaming with them. He snapped his mouth closed with an audible click. “What happened? Are you hurt?” Superman asked. Billy stared at him with wide eyes. He couldn’t open his mouth to speak, if he did he would be screaming again. The demons were laughing and jeering. “Shut up!” Superman snapped.

 

“Don’t command me!” the stout one lunged at them with his pitchfork. “I’ll rip out your tongue and—”

 Superman turned, catching the end of the pitchfork easily. Without Superman’s hands on his shoulders to support him, Billy found that his own shaky legs could not bear his weight and he sunk to his knees. With the stout demon still gripping the other end, Superman swung the pitchfork like a baseball bat. The stout demon slammed into the mantis, his grip on the pitchfork failing, and the two went flying several yards before crashing to the ground.

 “We’re done here,” Superman stated throwing the pitchfork over a mile in the opposite direction.

**_“We are.”_** The sound of the third demon’s voices made Billy want to curl up and hide, but at least his voice was no longer one of the legion.

Superman was at his side in an instant, grabbing one of his arms and pulling it over his shoulders. “Let’s go,” he said before leaping into the air.

 

They flew for some time. Well, Superman flew. Billy was too shaken up to be anything more than dead weight. Superman set them down when they had put at least a couple miles between them and the demons’ fire. “Need a moment to catch your breath?” he asked. Billy nodded. He fell back to sit on the ground and drew up his knees. He rested his elbows on them and cradled his face in his hands. He closed his eyes, wanting to find refuge in his own mind, but all he found was the image of his false face with its dead eyes and gaping mouth and the screamings of the void.

 

Billy’s eyes snapped open, his breathing accelerating. “Captain Sparklefingers?” Superman touched his arm and Billy jumped, head whipping around to look at him. “Hey, can you tell me about your brother?” he asked gently.

Billy blinked rapidly. “. . .Freddy?”

“Yeah,” Superman smiled encouragingly, “Tell me about Freddy.”

“He. . .he came up with the name. He came up with all the names really. He’s, he’s the one who knows how all this superhero stuff is supposed to work, and he’s always been there to help me figure it out,” the longer Billy talked the easier it became, and the horrors he had seen gazing into the third demon began to fade.

“He sounds like a good brother,” Superman said.

“He is,” Billy smiled. “But. . .” his smile turned into a frown, “I’ve not always been such a good brother myself.”

“Whatever mistakes you’ve made, you’ll have plenty of time to patch them over with him once we’ve made it home,” Superman stated confidently with not even an inkling of doubt in his voice.

 

“I wasn’t lying to you. I don’t, I don’t know how to get back,” Billy said.

“I know you didn’t lie,” Superman replied. “But I think maybe you do know how we can get out of here, and you just haven’t realized it.”

“What do you mean?” Billy’s brow furrowed.

“You knew which way we should go in. Think about it. You didn’t just pick a random direction. Something inside you knew where we should go,” Superman explained.

“I. . .” Billy considered that. “I guess you’re right.”

“Where are you being drawn to now, Captain?” he asked.

Billy stood slowly. He closed his eyes and breathed deep, allowing his mind to clear. _Where should they go?_ He felt a pull in his gut, leading him like an invisible string. He raised a hand, pointing in the correct direction. “That way.”

Superman clapped him on the shoulder. “Let’s go home.”

 

* * *

 

As they flew on, there began to be signs of civilization. Crude dwellings started to appear alongside narrow roads which cut through the craggy ground. Demons moved among the dwellings and along the trails, but he and Superman kept to the skies above them and made no attempt to interact with them. However, some of the demons did try to interact with them and none of it was friendly. They threw rocks, weapons, and even small balls of fire, but it was a simple matter of flying higher or faster to escape the attacks.

 

Soon, all the narrow pathways began to join together to form a single great road heading in one direction—the direction Billy and Superman were heading. “Can you see that?” Superman asked.

Billy squinted. On the horizon, he could see where the land suddenly rose into narrow jagged peaks like a predator’s teeth. “The mountain range?”

“It’s not mountains. It’s a city and this road leads directly to it,” Superman looked over at him. “It’s where we’re going isn’t it?”

“Looks like. Is that a good thing or a bad thing?” Billy asked.

Superman considered that. “Both. I bet that’s where we’ll find the way out but not without meeting with resistance.”

 

As they drew closer, Billy was able to more clearly make out the city. It was unlike anything he had ever seen before, an odd conglomeration of ancient and modern architecture. There were metal skyscrapers with peaks which disappeared into the black clouds, and along their surface the red lightning regularly danced, but the orange and yellow citywide lights of the city flickered and wavered in a way which suggested they were flames and not electrical. There were also many structures made of stone the color of dried blood: coliseums, smaller towers, archways, and a wall which surrounded the whole city—dwarfed against the metal skyscrapers but impressive on its own merit.

 

Along the top of the wall were several trebuchet catapults. . .and they were all preparing to fire. “Ah, Jesus,” Billy groaned as over two dozen flaming boulders came hurling towards them. Billy banked to the left, a bolder flying past him close enough to singe the tails of his cape. Twin red beams shot from Superman’s eyes, decimating a boulder into a rain of gray gravel. Billy corkscrewed over one boulder and exploded another with a bolt of lightning.

Superman caught one of the boulders, grimacing. He spun once before throwing it into two other boulders, one of which had been about to hit Billy from a blind spot. Billy turned to throw a quick thanks to Superman, but his gratitude turned to concern upon seeing Superman just hovering there staring at his hands. “Shit!” Billy shot lightning at a boulder heading straight towards Superman. The boulder exploded, showering the man of steel in gray shards. Superman blinked, shaking his head.

 

“What’s the matter?” Billy called, dodging around another boulder so he could fly near Superman.

Superman flexed his hands. “I’m fine!” He proved this point by cutting through the remaining boulders with his heat vision.

“Man, I wish I had heat vision,” Billy exclaimed. He glanced down at the wall and the trebuchets. “They’re about to fire again!”

“Get behind me and cover your ears,” Superman ordered, and by his tone it was undoubtedly an order. Billy flew behind him and muffled his ears with his hands just as the trebuchets were released a second time.

 

Superman met the barrage with a handclap. . .handclap so strong that it created a great soundwave which extinguished the flames of the boulders and sent the stones crashing back into the wall and the nearby buildings. “Holy. . .” Billy slowly lowered his hands from his ears. There was still an echoing in the air. “. . .Moley. That was incre—your hands?” Billy’s eyes widened with surprise and concern upon seeing Superman’s palms reddened like he’d suffered a bad sunburn.

“The fire—it was able to burn me,” Superman replied, voice tight.

“Hellfire. I guess it’s stronger than the stuff we’ve got upstairs,” Billy commented. He hadn’t touched the hellfire directly himself. He wondered if it would be able to harm him. It had been able to burn his cape. Dr. Sivana said his magic made him invulnerable to the weapons of mortals. . .but these were the weapons of Hell.

 

“Impressive, Alien,” an amplified female voice sounded from the wall. “Now, come closer that we might converse as civilized folk.”

Billy glanced at Superman. The man shrugged, “might as well see what she has to say, but stay on your guard.”

“Goes without saying,” Billy snorted. He followed Superman down to the wall and to the one who had spoken.

 

“I am the Lady Blaze,” she spoke in a normal volume as she laid a clawed hand on her breast. She had the form of the woman; but her skin was red, her eyes glowed, her hair billowed like smoke, and from her head two horns like those of a rams curled. She wore very little, and what she was clad in was made of a strange leather. She was tall, at least six feet, but horribly skinny—nothing but skin and bones.

She gestured to a figure who stood at her right side, “This is my dear brother, the Lord Satanus.” Lady Blaze was tall, but her brother was taller. He was a certifiable giant of over seven feet, and clad in heavy armor made of bones which Billy suspected came from no beast. He wore a helmet which cast his face into shadow, and from that darkness his eyes glowed like embers. He had horns like his sister’s. He held in his hands a large war hammer, and the exposed skin of his hands was the same red shade as Lady Blaze’s.

 

“We are the commanders of the great stronghold of Dis,” Lady Blaze stated.

“We didn’t come looking for trouble,” Superman said.

“Yet trouble has found you,” Lady Blaze replied. “I will cast you a deal, Alien. Tear from his shoulders the head of the Wizard Mamaragan’s new pet, and I will let you go unmolested.” She gestured almost carelessly towards Billy.

“I’m not going to dignify that with a response,” Superman stated, jaw set.

“I had hoped you wouldn’t,” she grinned, a sharp barring of teeth. “It will bring me great pleasure to bath in the Champion of Shazam’s blood myself.”

 

“Okay, lady, how do you know me and what is your damage?” Billy demanded.

“You mean our father did not speak of us? I am not surprised. Our existence always vexed him so,” Lady Blaze replied.

Billy shook his head. “I have no idea what you’re yammering about.”

“The Wizard who granted you your powers, he is the one who sired my brother and I,” she explained.

“You’re joking,” Billy snorted. “You don’t really expect me to believe Mister Must Find One Pure of Heart got it on with a demon do you?”

“When he fucked our mother he knew not what she was. It was only once she already bore use in her womb that he learned she was a demoness and tried to slay her. That our mother escaped and we lived was a great shame unto him,” Lady Blaze stated. Beside her Lord Satanus shifted but remained silent.

“Harsh,” Billy winced, feeling genuine sympathy for them.

“When news of his demise reached us it was cause for great celebration,” she said, and Lord Satanus snorted, the first sound he had made. Billy wondered what a celebration in hell was like, but decided he was probably happier not knowing. “Once we have killed you, Champion, it will be time for another celebration.”

“You know, there’s no need for us to fight. I kind of thought the guy was a dick myself,” Billy chuckled nervously.

“Oh but there is,” Lady Blaze purred. “For you see, with you dead my brother and I will be all that remains of our Father’s legacy—his disavowed, bastard, blasphemous children.”

 

She splayed her fingers, and hellfire ignited in her palms. “It will be a glorious vengeance!” She brought her palms together and pointed them at him, shooting hellfire at his person. Billy banked to the left to avoid the flames, but Lady Blaze kept after him with a stream of hellfire which lapped just at his heels. Gritting his teeth, Billy turned and pointed a hand at her. A bolt of lightning shot from his hand, and Lady Blaze had to stop her assault to dive out of the way.

Meanwhile, Superman had body slammed Lord Satanus off of the wall and into a nearby stone tower. The continuing sound of crashing and buildings toppling spoke of how their confrontation was going.

 

Billy landed on the wall as Lady Blaze rolled to her feet. She threw a ball of hellfire at him, and he met it with a strike of lightning which caused it to explode into a cloud of acrid smoke. From the cover of that smoke, Lady Blaze leapt at him, and slashed at him with her claws. Billy did his best to dodge, but she was shockingly agile and had caught him by surprise. Her claws scored across his chest, and Billy sucked in a sharp breath as they cut through not only his uniform but his flesh as well.

“Didn’t want to do this,” he gritted as he swung a fist which connected with her jaw. He pulled his punch, not using nearly the full extent of his strength. Lady Blaze wasn’t just skinny. She looked frail, old and sickly, and even if she was a demon – or a half-demon, whatever – he didn’t want to kill her.

Lady Blaze’s head whipped to the side. She looked back at him with a snarl, a few streams of blood running across the white planes of her teeth, but otherwise looking none the worse for wear. She punched him straight in the nose with enough force to send him tumbling head over heels. Billy rolled to his feet. “Definitely not as weak as she looks,” he commented, wiping blood from his nose and mouth with the back of his hand.

 

Without any warning, Lord Satanus’ war hammer crashed into the ground between them. Billy raised a hand to shield his eyes from the rock shards which sprayed off from the impact. He then darted forward and grabbed the handle of the great weapon with both hands. He swung the war hammer at Lady Blaze. She danced out of its reach. “You defile my brother’s weapon!” she shrieked, throwing hellfire at him. Billy used the giant hammer as a shield, the metal glowing red hot.

“That’s rich coming from a demon!” Billy hefted the war hammer over his head and brought it down onto the wall. With a thunderous crack, the stone wall crumbled for dozens of feet before and behind him. It was a simple matter for Billy to push off the falling chunk of stone he had been standing on to instead float into the air. It was not so simple for Lady Blaze.

 

The demon let out an infuriated scream as she ran across several falling stones before leaping across a ten foot gap to roll onto the roof of a nearby building. Billy made to pursue her but was distracted by a roar. He looked over to see Lord Satanus charging at him, eyes blazing as he leapt between building, leaving great craters in his wake. “Here, catch!” Billy threw the war hammer at him.

The hammer slammed into Lord Satanus and sent him crashing through one of the skyscrapers. A cold wind swept past Billy, whipping at his cape, and he spun around to see Superman combating Lady Blaze’s hellfire with his freezing breath. The freezing air extinguished the fires and Lady Blaze retreated when the cold wind came close to touching her skin.

 

“We trading dancing partners?” Billy asked.

“Mine’s not much of a conversationalist,” Superman commented. He looked a little worse for wear, slightly battered and bruised. “Are you still feeling a pull towards somewhere else, or was it these two you were being drawn to?”

Billy considered that for a moment. “No, it’s towards the center of the city.”

They flew apart as Lady Blaze flung a ball of hellfire at them. “Then we make for the center,” Superman stated before swooping in to slice through the corner of the building Lady Blaze was standing on with his heat vision.

 

Movement from the corner of his eye caught Billy’s attention. He flew backwards and Lord Satanus’ war hammer cleaved past him to smash through some poor fool’s abode. A second latter Lord Satanus himself was slamming into Billy’s side. They broke through an archway before crashing down into a road, Lord Satanus landing on top of him. Billy grunted as the hard surface of the road buckled beneath them. Lord Satanus swung a large fist as his head. Billy moved his head, grit spraying his cheek as the demon’s fist cracked the ground. A cheer came up from around them. They had gathered a crowd of grotesque gawkers.

Billy tried to throw Lord Satanus off of him, but the giant demon wasn’t budging and had him well and truly pinned. Lord Satanus linked his fingers and slammed his hands down onto Billy’s sternum. All the air was forcefully expelled from Billy’s lungs in a painful gasp. “Crush him!” the crowd screamed. Billy grit his teeth. He bucked and squirmed. One of his arms slipped free.

 

The giant slammed his hands down a second time, and Billy bit back a scream as pain exploded in his chest. He clenched his now free hand into a fist and swung it up into Lord Satanus’ side, but with his heavy armor protecting him the demon didn’t so much as flinch. “Crush him! Crush him!” Lord Satanus slammed his hands down onto Billy’s chest a third time, and a strangled cry tore from Billy’s throat as sharp pain laced along his ribs and whited out his vision.

_“Crush him! Crush him! Crush him!”_ the crowd was in a frenzy. Lord Satanus raised his hands for a fourth time, and Billy realized that if this continued he really was going to be _crushed._ Billy raised his free hand. Golden lightning danced along his arm and shot from his fingers to strike Lord Satanus in the chest. The giant jerked, his hands coming unlinked as tremors like small earthquakes began to wrack his form.

 

The crowd had gone silent, shocked by this turn of events. Billy weaseled his other arm free. He raised both hands, and lightning spilled from them, illuminating their surroundings with a bright light which had the crowd hissing and spitting. Lord Satanus was blasted off of him, through a stone pillar, and into the side of a nearby building. Billy climbed to his feet, prepared to continue the attack, but a demon from the crowd lunged at him and took a swipe at his side with a jagged knife.

“Whoa!” Billy jumped out of the way, pointing a finger at the demon and blasting him back with a jolt of lightning. Infuriated cries came up from the crowd—the mob. Billy caught vile curses being thrown his away along with rocks and other objects as the mob closed in around him. “Shit,” he muttered, eyes darting around at all the angry, twisted faces.

Billy clapped his hands, sparks played about them, then slammed his hands onto the ground. Dozens of bolts of lightning branched out, cleaving up the ground and reaching up into the bodies of the advancing demons. The demons jerked, their weapons falling from limp fingers with a clatter. Then, as one, the mob collapsed into unconsciousness.

 

Billy spun and started to sprint down the damaged road. He saw Lord Satanus pushing himself up. “You stay!” he shot a bolt of lightning at the giant demon, knocking him back down, before leaping into the air and flying towards the center of the city. A handful of blocks over he spotted Superman locked in combat with Lady Blaze in the arena of a coliseum.

A wave of hellfire gushed from the demon’s hands, which Superman was fighting back with his freezing breath though walls of fire still swept past on either side of him. Billy swooped towards them and fired a bolt of lightning at Lady Blaze. The demon looked up, spotting it a second too late to dodge.

She was blown off her feet and into a metal grid gate leading into a cage built into the arena’s wall. Superman turned, using his freezing breath to put out what remained of the hellfire, so that all that remained as evidence were the burnt edges of his cape and shards of glass where the sand floor of the arena had been melted down into glass.

 

“What have you done with my brother?” Lady Blaze demanded, grabbing onto the gate to pull herself up.

“He’s taking a nap,” Billy replied as he landed next to Superman.

“Your blood will soak the sands!” she spat. Flames wreathed her hands and she grabbed the large padlock securing the gate.

“Wait!” Superman shouted taking a step forward. Lady Blaze tore off the padlock, taking part of the gate with it, and threw the hot chunk of metal at Superman. Lady Blaze yanked open the heavy gate as Superman deflected the chunk of metal with his heat vision.

 

A deep rumbling sounded from the cage, and six red eyes glowed from the darkness. The shadows moved and some of them detached and slithered out into the light of the arena. It was a four-legged draconic creature that was black as night. The dragon roared as it flared its expansive bat-like wings. “Jesus Christ!” Billy exclaimed.

“He can’t help you here!” Lady Blaze cackled from where she had taken cover between the pulled out gate and the wall.

 

The dragon lunged at them. Billy dived out of the way. Superman caught the creature by the snout, arms wrapping around it to hold its jaws closed. As Billy was coming up out of his roll, the dragon’s thick tail swung around to strike him in the chest. Billy hit the ground with a grunt, shards of glass digging into the back of his head. Meanwhile, the beast snarled as it furiously shook its head, jerking Superman to and fro.

Billy pushed up onto one of his elbows. He outstretched his other arm, lightning shot from his hand. It skated along the creature’s flank—ineffective. “Shit,” Billy cursed. The dragon whipped its head back and roared as Superman lost his grip on it and went tumbling through the air to crash into the upper ring of the coliseum’s expansive stadium. The dragon turned its six eyed stare on Billy. It opened its jaws, an orange glow gathering in the back of its throat. “Double shit!”

 

Billy rolled to the right. Hellfire gushed from the dragon’s gullet, decimating where he had been. He pushed off the ground and flew at the creature. The dragon turned its head, and Billy spun in the air. The flames came dangerously close to him, and he could feel the heat coming off them, already uncomfortably hot. He slammed into the beast where neck met body. He lifted the dragon from the ground. It roared and beat its wings, but Billy held firm. With a shout, he slammed it into the wall of the arena.

The creature shrieked. Billy yelped as he was yanked away from it, the dragon having snatched his cape in its jaws. “Fu—” Billy fumbled uselessly with the clasps of his cape as the dragon shook him like a dog with a particularly beloved, or hated, chew toy. Superman swooped in, heat vision cutting across the dragon’s face, and the beast released Billy with an earsplitting cry.

 

Billy cartwheeled through the air before smacking face first into the wall of the arena. He fell to the ground, leaving behind a nice body shaped imprint in the stone. “Might throw up,” he groaned as he sat up with a hand pressed to his head. He might of stopped spinning but that didn’t mean the world had. A flare of orange invaded his field of vision. “Shit!” he shot off a bolt of lightning and the sphere of hellfire courtesy of Lady Blaze exploded in his face. Billy grimaced and squinted as the smoke stung his eyes, and he got a whiff of the unpleasant smell of ozone mixed with sulfur.

“No holding back!” He jumped to his feet as Lady Blaze leapt at him.

 

She slashed at him. He brought up an arm. Her claws screeched as they scratched along his golden vambrace. He aimed a jab at her solar plexus, but she danced out of the way, and his strike glanced off her side, barely connecting. Lady Blaze swung at his chest. Billy dropped into a crouch.

In the background, he could still hear the dragon’s furious roars, but he couldn’t look away to check how Superman was fairing.

Billy swung a leg out to try and sweep the demon off her feet, but Lady Blaze easily jumped over his leg. He popped up with an uppercut. Lady Blaze leaned backwards, so all he hit was air. Billy kicked and finally landed a hit—his heel to the inside of her right knee. Her leg folded. She twisted and rolled as she fell. With an angry shout, she took a swipe at his left leg. Billy pivoted, swinging his left leg back, her nails just catching his suit. He bent his knees, preparing for a roundhouse kick—

 

“Captain, move!” Superman shouted. Billy didn’t question, didn’t look, just pushed off the ground and into the air half a moment before the dragon’s hellfire razed the area where he and Lady Blaze had been fighting. Lady Blaze wasn’t so lucky. The demon screamed as the fires consumed her. Billy stared, frozen with horror. He would of thought that she would be immune to hellfire—he thought wrong. The dragon’s fire swung towards where he was hovering, and he had to move lest he meet a similar fate.

 

“What did you do?” Billy shouted as he wove through the air towards Superman. The dragon was going absolutely berserk, shrieking up a storm as it crashed about the arena, hellfire spilling from its mouth the whole time.

“I blinded it. Its eyes were the only part which were vulnerable. I thought maybe that would stop it,” Superman explained, a touch sheepish.

Billy watched as the dragon lopsidedly flew a few yards into the air, its head whipping towards the sound of their voices. Superman and Billy split apart to avoid the beast’s fire. “Well I think you just pissed it off,” Billy called. The dragon flew into a wall and fell back to the ground with an enraged roar.

 

“What do we do? My lightning’s useless against it!” he shouted as the dragon continued to rampage.

Superman’s eyes darted around. “But not against the rocks!” He looked at Billy. “We bury it.”

Billy’s eyes widened with understanding. He nodded.

“I’ll go right,” Superman began.

“And I go left,” Billy finished.

Superman smiled, “sounds like a plan.”

 

They split apart. Billy turned to the left and flew out of the arena and up into the stone stands. He spread his hands and forks of lightning leapt from his fingers and into the stones. On the other side of the arena, Superman did similar with his heat vision. Billy finished his sweep of the coliseum and turned to watch as it collapsed. The stones of the stands crumbled and cracked, and the levels slid into each other to finally crash into the arena. The dragon shrieked as it was buried under tons of stone, and Billy felt no swell of pride, of accomplishment, at having slayed a dragon.

 

Superman came to hover beside him in the air above the destroyed coliseum, but Billy didn’t acknowledge him. He was still staring at the cloud of dust which billowed from the rubble. “Captain? You alright?” Superman questioned.

“It was just an animal,” he said softly. An animal that had tried to kill then, and they had defended themselves. An animal that had been kept in a tiny cage and been forced to fight for sport. His faced twisted. _“I hate this place!”_

Superman laid a hand on his shoulder. “Let’s get out of here.”

Billy nodded. “Let’s.”

 

Billy led the way, following that unseen pull. It led them over a few blocks and down into an alley at the back of a skyscraper. There, in the shadows and the grime, there stood a wooden door. It was pristine and hovered a foot off the ground, unattached to any walls or other structures. Billy stared at it, transfixed. “That’s it,” he said as he floated towards it.

He reached out and laid a hand on the wooden surface. He gasped. It was warm and pulsed with energy, it seemed almost alive. A symbol, golden and glowing, appeared on its surface. Billy vaguely recognized it. It looked like one of the symbols used to enter the Rock of Eternity—but it was only one.

“This will take us home?” Superman asked. Before Billy could answer a roar echoed through the area. A roar he was unfortunately becoming familiar with. He looked over to see Lord Satanus at the mouth of the alley. There was a figure staggering beside him. Hellfire jumped in her palms. Where Lady Blaze had been nothing but skin and bones before, now she was nothing but bones.

 

Billy grabbed the warm doorknob and yanked the door open. He looked through the doorway and saw another world, but it wasn’t the Rock of Eternity, he wasn’t sure it was anywhere on Earth. . .but it looked a lot nicer than Hell. “It’ll take us away from here!”

Lord Satanus drew back his arms and hurled his war hammer at them.

“Works for me!” Superman shouted. He and Billy flew through the doorway. The door slammed shut behind them, and the war hammer passed through empty air as the door faded out of existence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Blaze and Satanus are characters from the comics (if I was making up my own demon character I would not name them Blaze and Satanus). However, for their powers and personalities I pretty much did whatever I wanted. Same goes from the depiction of Hell, while I took inspiration from different comics (specifically Lucifer though that's technically Vertigo) I really just did whatever I wanted.
> 
> The fight with Blaze and Satanus was a pain in my ass. It's probably the longest fight I've ever written and the first time I've written one in recent memory with such powerful characters. I knew I wanted the fight to be big, but I also worry that it might have dragged...? I tried to keep the fighting interesting and dynamic but...*shrugs*
> 
> I'd love to hear what y'all thought: about the fight, about this chapter and the story in general.


	3. Cotton Candy Clouds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Having escaped from Hell, Superman and Billy end up in a cutesy pastel world, but the colorful clouds are hiding a threat capable of bringing the Man of Steel crashing down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who has commented, left kudos, and otherwise supported this story!! It really means a lot to me!! <3

Clark Kent spun in the air just in time to watch the impossible door they had passed through disappear from existence. With the possibility of Lady Blaze and Lord Satanus pursuing them eliminated, he turned his attention to their new surroundings. The door had deposited them in the middle of a pastel sky filled with fluffy pink and purple clouds which looked like cotton candy. Some feet above them a. . .flock? of what looked like around two dozen rainbow colored jellyfish were bobbing gently through the air as if it were water.

 

“Jeez, looks like we stepped into one of Darla’s Lisa Frank notebooks. All that’s missing is the giant rainbow unicorn in the sky,” Captain Sparklefingers commented as he flew closer to the cluster of flying jellyfish, though he smartly stayed away from their colorful, ribbon like tentacles. For which Clark was thankful, he did not want to find out what a sting from one of them would do.

“Beats Hell,” Clark replied.

“True,” the other hero nodded absently, still watching the jellyfish with wide-eyed wonder. Clark shook his head and smiled. He looked around at their cutesy surroundings. Definitely better than Hell, but still not home.

“Let’s set down somewhere and figure out where to go from there,” he suggested. Flying was generally effortless for him, but after the extended fight with Lady Blaze and Lord Satanus he was feeling a touch weary—and this place, despite the bubbly appearance something in the air laid heavy on Clark. Maybe the gravity was stronger.

The Captain looked away from the jellyfish. “Sounds good,” he smiled as he flew back towards Clark. There was the shadow of fatigue lurking around his smile and his eyes, and Clark felt slightly reassured seeing that he wasn’t the only one feeling drained.

 

They flew down through the cloud bank, and Clark saw green below them, but it was not grass. It was a boiling sea. As they flew closer to its roiling surface, Clark caught the near overwhelming stench of strong chemicals. Whatever it was an ocean of, it certainly wasn’t water.

While Clark stayed a safe ten feet above the sea’s surface, the Captain threw caution to the wind and flew much closer—impulsive as always as Clark had quickly found him to be. “Now that does not. . .” he began, pointing at the boiling sea, much too close to the surface for comfort. Clark opened his mouth to warn him back but was too late. “Ouch!” the other hero shouted, when some of the spray hit his outstretched hand.

The Captain shook his hand so fast it became a blur as he floated back to hover beside Clark. “. . .fit the Lisa Frank aesthetic,” he finished with a pout. He had stopped moving his hand, and Clark noted that there were no visible marks. Whatever pain it had caused him at least it didn’t seem to have left physical injury.

 

Clark turned his gaze to the horizon, scanning far into the distance – but not quite as far as he should have been able to, a voice whispered at the back of his mind – all he saw was sky and sea. “There’s no land in sight,” he reported.

“So we’re flying out of here?" the Captain sighed. "I mean, If there was any land you would of spotted it with your, like, twenty thousand/twenty thousand vision."

“There’s still a chance we’ll come across something.” Maybe there would be some floating landmass hidden among the clouds. Anything was possible here where Earth’s rules no longer applied. “But yes, it’s looking that way,” Clark replied, doing his best to not to let his disappointment show in his voice. “Do you have a sense of which way we should go?”

“Oh, um,” the Captain closed his eyes, and his brow furrowed with concentration. Clark waited in silence.

 

In all honesty, Clark hadn’t gone to Philadelphia just to stop the museum robbers. He had been hoping to run into Captain Sparklefingers or one of the other five similarly lightning themed heroes who had popped up shortly after him. He had been following the Captain’s exploits through the media and social media, and he knew that the other hero was inexperienced and new to his powers, but also well meaning—that all of the members of Philadelphia’s new superhero team were.

The most obvious mission of the Justice League was to protect Earth, but Clark felt that there was a second less obvious mission as well: to act as a resource for and offer guidance to new superheroes. Clark had wanted to be the one to personally offer his help to the new and hopeful heroes of Philadelphia.

 

The Captain’s eyes flew open, and he spun around. He pointed, forward and up. “That way!” he exclaimed as he started to fly towards the cloud bank in a smooth arch. Clark let out a relieved breath. He was glad that the other hero’s ability to sense a way out of the dimension they were in had not been a one off thing. Hopefully this next door would actually lead them back to Earth. He flew after the Captain. It took some effort for him to catch up. It shouldn’t have.

They flew across the pastel sky in silence for some time. Clark was focused fully on keeping up with the Captain’s pace. The pace the other hero didn’t seem to be having any trouble keeping, but for some reason Clark was struggling. It was like he was fighting against some unseen force trying to pull him in the opposite direction. Stronger gravity? But if so, why wasn’t the Captain being affected as well?

 

“How long do you think it’s been?” the Captain asked, breaking the silence.

“Sorry?” Clark replied, not having caught the question—and since when did he have trouble hearing something?

“I mean, at least a few hours must of past since those cultists blasted us. . .my family will be wondering where I am,” the other hero explained, voice subdued.

“Time might not be moving the same for us as for them. What may be hours for us could be seconds on Earth,” he suggested.

“Or years!" the Captain shouted. "What if we get back and decades have pasted and everyone we know has moved on or is dead?”

“That won’t be the case,” Clark stated. It couldn’t be.

“But what if—I just found my family! I can’t loose them!” the Captain exclaimed, verging on hysterics.

 

There was a buzzing in Clark’s ears. What if. . .

 

Lois wouldn’t worry at first when she woke up alone in their bed. It wasn’t uncommon for cape business to call him away at odd hours, and besides he had left a note: _‘Got a lead on the museum story. Might be late to the office. Love you, Clark.’_

Would those quickly scribbled words be his last to her? The thought was unbearable.

When he failed to show up to work at all or to their planned lunch date then the worry would start to set in, and then the panic when she and no one else could contact him. The thought of leaving her and his mother and everyone else who cared about him again – of leaving them to _grieve him_ again – pained him: a physical ache in his chest.

He and Lois were supposed to discuss wedding venues at lunch.

 

Clark shook his head. The world spun dizzyingly. He closed his eyes and breathed deep. He was getting a headache. “No. That won’t be happening,” he stated. He didn’t get headaches, but he couldn’t dwell on that. There were more pressing concerns. He opened his eyes and looked over at the Captain. The other hero was staring back at him with wide eyes, frightened eyes. “We’re going to get back home. We’re going to make it back to our families. I promise,” he said with full confidence. He smiled, “and I don’t break my promises.”

 

Clark would move planets, traverse galaxies, to get back to Lois. Whatever it took.

 

“. . .okay,” the Captain mumbled, head bobbing up and down as he nodded. “Okay, we can do this,” he repeated more firmly. They had started moving again, which Clark was grateful for. If they couldn’t set down and rest, he didn’t want to delay hovering in the air. “I mean, you’re Superman! You can do, like, anything!”

“Not anything,” he replied mildly. “I can’t shoot lightning like you can.”

“Yeah, well, that’s not much of a loss when you can shoot lasers from your eyes,” the Captain shrugged.

“Don’t sell yourself short, ki—Cap. I happen to think your lightning’s pretty impressive,” Clark replied. He must be more out of sorts than he wanted to admit. He almost called the other man _kiddo_.

“You really think so?” the Captain ducked his head to hide his bashful smile.

 

The other hero looked like he should be around the same age as Clark, but speaking to him. . .Clark wasn’t so sure. There was a sort of agelessness about the Captain that reminded Clark a bit of Diana while at the same time being absolutely nothing like her. While Wonder Woman carried with her the grace and wisdom of an experienced warrior, Captain Sparklefingers carried with him the immaturity and childishness of someone who never grew up. Perhaps Peter Pan would be a more apt comparison.

 

“I really do,” Clark affirmed. “Heat visions pretty nifty, but I can’t charge a phone with it. I’d just destroy it.”

“I destroyed a few phones too,” the Captain commented. “Hey. . .wait, have you—do you watch my Youtube videos?”

“I do,” Clark answered simply, amused by the look of pure shock which crossed the other hero’s face.

 

He had watched all of the videos that had been uploaded to the Hero Manager’s channel. He’d watched a lot of them with Lois. His fiancé had described the videos as a stroke of PR genius as they allowed people a chance to get a sense of who this new hero was and what his abilities and intentions were.

People saw videos of Captain Sparklefingers – or whatever he was being called that day – goofing off, having fun, messing up, and when they saw him in the skies performing impossible feats they didn’t fear him as the people had feared Superman at first—as some still feared him. They saw the Captain and they never questioned his humanity, that he was _one of them_. Superman would always be seen as _other_ , whether that be positive or negative.

Having met the other hero, Clark was confident that the videos had not been devised as a publicity stunt. No, the videos were just the kind of person Captain Sparklefingers _was_. There were disadvantages to the Captain’s youthfulness, his impulsivity was an obvious one, but there were advantages to it as well. He was powerful, probably around as powerful as Clark, but his playfulness was disarming.

 

“Oh man, Freddy is gonna lose his shi—flip his lid!” the Captain laughed. Clark smiled, the Captain’s joy was infectious. Another advantage. So, it was his brother who filmed the videos. That lined up with what the other hero had told him about his brother.

It meant Freddy was a younger brother. While the cameraman stayed out of frame, his voice was heard on more than one occasion shouting instructions to the Captain. It was not a man’s voice. Clark would estimate that at the absolute oldest Freddy was in his early twenties, but then again he couldn’t even give a good guess of the Captain’s age while staring straight at him, so it was possible he— _“Superman!”_

 

Clark was falling.

 

* * *

 

Superman was falling.

_“Superman!”_ Billy dove after him, his heart pounded heavily in his chest. Superman plummeted through the clouds like a boulder, sending a flock of flying fish-like creatures scattering as he crashed through the middle of them before he shakily stabilized himself in the air.

“What’s wrong?” Billy demanded, grabbing Superman’s arm as he pulled up next to him. He looked slightly dazed and like he might start falling again at any moment. It was frightening.

“I’m alright,” he answered absently.

“That’s a lie!” Billy snorted derisively. Superman’s gaze shot to him. “Sorry,” Billy winced, his hand withdrawing as if burned, as it suddenly dawned on him that he just shouted at _Superman._ “I didn’t. . .I just—"

“I’m sorry,” Superman interrupted.

“What?” Billy gaped at him.

He sighed heavily, “I knew something about this place was affecting my powers. I should of told you sooner.”

“Your powers?” Billy parroted, trying hard to keep the panic from his voice.

“I’ve been feeling weaker since we arrived here,” Superman confessed with clear reluctance. “My senses are dulling, flying is becoming a challenge. . .I don’t know how much longer I’ll be able to fly.”

 

“Okay, okay, this is-this is fine. We just need to hurry up and get out of here, and whatever’s affecting you will stop, and-and you’ll go back to being your regular superpowered self,” Billy babbled, a poor attempt at reassuring not just Superman but himself as well. He plastered on a grin. Superman smiled weakly in response.

They started flying again in the direction of the pull Billy sensed. They flew at a much slower pace and in a tense silence. Instead of gazing at the colorful flying marine-like fauna, Billy watched Superman from the corner of his eye, doing his best to avoid getting caught staring.

Now that he knew to look, and perhaps now that Superman wasn’t trying so hard to cover it up, it was rather obvious that the other hero was struggling. His flying was wobbly, his breathing was labored, and sweat dampened his furrowed brow even at their sedated pace. It was unsettling.

 

They had only been flying for around fifteen to twenty minutes when Superman started to fall again. “Whoa!” Billy exclaimed, darting over and catching him before he could fall very far.

“Damn it,” Superman cursed loudly. Billy winced at the man’s anger though it wasn’t directed at him. Superman sighed, “how much farther?”

“Um. . .not too much farther?” Billy grimaced at the weak answer, but he really didn’t know. The pull felt stronger than it had when they had started out, but not as strong as when they had been in Dis. “The Wizard didn’t exactly leave a user manual behind.”

“At least we know we’re headed in the right direction,” Superman replied. “We should keep moving.”

They kept flying. Well, Billy was flying. Superman was not. Billy carried him pressed to his side, one of Superman’s arms slung over his shoulders. It was awkward and a touch precarious, but no way was Billy going to suggest he carry Superman bridal style—now that would really be awkward.

 

They soon broke through a pink and purple cloud bank and got their first look at this world’s sun: a red giant. “Whoa,” Billy breathed as he gazed at the massive star.

“That explains it,” Superman commented.

“Explains what?” Billy questioned.

“My powers come from absorbing the radiation of Earth’s yellow sun,” he nodded to the red giant, “that’s no yellow sun.”

“Oh. . .” Billy had no idea Superman was solar powered. “But once we get you under a yellow sun again you’ll get your powers back, right?”

“Yes, it might take a bit for my full strength to return but it will,” he answered.

“Awesome! Let’s hurry up and put this stupid place behind us,” he exclaimed, pushing himself to fly that little bit faster.

 

Billy glanced up and looked one last time at the red sun before it disappeared once more behind the pastel clouds. He was glad it was no longer bearing down on them, a constant reminder of their predicament. Not that there was any chance of Billy forgetting even with the red sun hidden. Superman was gripping his shoulder. For a normal person the grip would be strong, but for _Superman_ it was weak. Billy was acutely aware that that weak grip and his own hold on the man were all that were keeping Superman from plummeting through the clouds and into the boiling sea below.

It was frightening. Superman wasn’t supposed to be so vulnerable. Yes, Billy knew he wasn’t invincible. Superman had died. . .but he came back. He had overcome death. So far from home and lost in a sea of uncertainty, Billy had begun to look to Superman’s strength and tenacity as a lighthouse, sure in his capability to lead them home. Now, carrying a powerless Superman across the sky a nameless world the doubts crept in like shadows in the night—swirling what ifs. . .

 

What if the next world didn’t have a yellow sun?

What if what he was sensing now didn’t even lead to a way out as it had in Hell?

What if they encountered something that robbed him of his powers?

What if they never found a way back to Earth?

What if they died out here?

What if Superman died and Billy was left stranded, alone?

 

Before he could work himself into another panic, Billy forced himself to shift his focus to a flock of flying fish-like creatures gliding in the same direction as them. The creatures had long, narrow bodies coated in iridescent scales that shone with an array of colors when the light caught them and expansive gossamer fins that fanned out like the wings of a plane.

Darla would think they were so, so pretty. Fuck. Billy missed home.

Suddenly, the flock of flying fish changed directions in a flurry of movement. Billy turned his head and watched in puzzlement as they flew back in the direction they had just come from. He looked forward and quickly spotted what they were fleeing from. There was a dark splotch on the horizon which was rapidly growing in size, a gathering of deep pink and purple clouds like an angry bruise.

 

“That doesn’t look good,” Billy commented. It looked like a storm and a bad one.

“And let me guess, we’re being drawn directly into it?” Superman said.

“We could try going around it,” Billy suggested. Superman nodded.

Billy banked to the right, deviating from the path that invisible string urged him along, the path that led into the heart of the storm. For some miles, Billy skated along the outside of the storm without ever coming to its end, and they weren’t the only ones on the move.

The storm clouds were moving towards them. It came as a great shock the first time they were caught too close to the storm’s edge and were struck by a spray of burning rain. Billy had retreated with a surprised yelp, the rain leaving stinging echo’s of pain where it had struck his skin. It had left Superman with tear shaped burns.

 

Soon, avoiding the storm meant not only going right but going backwards as well. It was forcing them farther and farther from where they needed to be heading. “This isn’t working. We have to go through it,” Superman stated.

“But the rain, you’ll be hurt,” Billy protested.

“My suit will protect me from the worst of it,” he replied. “We have no other choice if we want to get out of here.”

“Alright, but I don’t like it,” Billy stated as he pulled up the hood of his cape.

Superman snorted, “neither do I.” Billy helped him pull part of his heavy, red cape over his head in a makeshift hood.

 

“Well. . .here goes nothing,” Billy said with zero enthusiasm before flying them into the storm. It was as terrible as he imagined. The dark clouds quickly enveloped them, and the acid rain came down in unrelenting sheets. Billy kept his head tucked to his chest and hidden within the folds of his hood, flying blind with only the magical pull to guide him.

The pain in his exposed hands was constant. Each drop of rain which struck his flesh was like burning fire, and the sensation did not dull with extended exposure. He couldn’t imagine how much worse it must be for the currently powerless Superman, who had done his best to huddle his exposed hands and head under his cape but was surely still getting pelted by the rain.

On the bright side, the pull was steadily growing stronger. They were making progress.

 

Billy could not say how long they had been flying in the storm when he felt it, for in such terrible conditions minutes dragged like hours, a familiar charge in the air—lightning. He looked up from the safety of his hood, and the rain slapped across his face like the crack of a whip. He hardly winced, so transfixed by what he was seeing.

It was a great ball, well over two yards in diameter, of bluish white lightning. It reminded Billy of the New Year’s Eve ball drop though that was truly a paltry comparison. The ball lightning wreathed and pulsed then exploded into dozens of streaks of lightning which went off in all directions.

Billy thought he heard Superman shout something, but couldn’t catch the words over the crash of thunder which followed on the heels of the explosion. What he could catch was the bolt of lightning which headed towards them. He caught the lightning with his arm not holding Superman up, and threw the bolt in a random direction. It collided with another streak of lightning in a second dazzling explosion.

 

They continued to encounter the ball lightning as they pushed further into the storm. Billy’s ability to redirect the lightning meant it was mostly harmless to them, but the near constant thunder was deafening and watching out for the lightning meant that Billy’s face was more exposed to the painful onslaught of the acid rain. However, Billy almost didn’t mind the pain as he watched the electrical display and took part in it by catching and releasing any bolts which neared them. If not for the acid rain and the other unfortunate factors of their circumstance it could have been fun.

The pull was also continuing to grow stronger. It was now about as strong as it was when they had been at the city wall of Dis. “We’re close!” Billy had to shout to be heard over the crashing of the storm. If Superman tried to say anything in response it was drowned out by an ear-piercing roar that Billy felt rattling in his bones. It was not the boom of thunder, no, it was the roar of a living beast.

 

Billy looked up, and among the clouds a shape was momentarily illuminated by multiple blasts of ball lightning: a great squid, larger than a football field. Suddenly, a tentacle as wide around as the trunk of an ancient oak swung at them from the surrounding clouds. Billy flew upwards, out of its path, but the appendage curled after them dexterously. He turned in the air and shot lightning at the tentacle; the electricity skimmed harmlessly along the creature’s skin.

“Fuck! Again!” Billy shouted, because seriously this was getting ridiculous! What was the point of being able to shoot lightning from his fucking hands if everything was fucking immune to it? “I want eye lasers!” Billy turned sharply to the left, keeping his head craned to look behind them at the tentacle pursuing them. He bet this stupid squid wouldn’t be immune to fucking eye lasers—

“Captain, dive!” Superman shouted in his ear. Billy did so without question. A second tentacle cut through the clouds above them. However, they weren’t in the clear yet. Billy yelped as one of the tentacles wrapped around his legs and yanked him back. Superman was torn from his grip.

 

_“Superman!”_ Billy screamed as the other hero plummeted into the dark clouds below. He struggled in the colossal squid’s hold, but the more he struggled the tighter its hold seemed to become—squeezing him like a vice. “Shit!” he twisted and tried pushing at the tentacle with his hands, but it was all tough muscle and was slick from the rain making it difficult to find any sort of leverage. “Shit!”

Maybe. . .Billy planted his hands flat on the tentacle and poured lightning directly into the giant squid’s flesh. At first nothing happened. Billy was about to give up when smoke began to rise from around his hands. He caught the scent of burning flesh. The great squid shrieked. Billy winced in sympathy, but it got the creature to loosen its grip enough for him to slip free.

 

“Superman!” he shouted as he flew down through the clouds, searching frantically for any signs of the other hero. He’d wasted several seconds wrestling with the creature, Superman could already be—“Superman!” his voice was immediately swallowed by the storm and the raucous was so loud he could not of heard any answering call. But the giant squid heard him.

“Piss off!” Billy shouted as he swerved through the air to avoid the tentacles trying to grab him again. He twisted in the air and, surprisingly, saw a flash of red and blue above him. “Superman!” there was joy in Billy’s cry this time as he sped through the clouds towards the other hero who had been snatched by the squid instead of being left to fall into the boiling sea so far below. Ball lightning continued to explode around him, but Billy ignored it. Ignored it till a bolt struck him square in the chest, and suddenly he was the one falling.

 

Billy tumbled through the clouds, the tails of his coat and hoodie whipping about him. His beanie was torn from his head and disappeared into the surrounding clouds. He had been changed back into his regular teenaged self. The acid rain bit into his skin, each drop which touched exposed flesh felt like needles being driven down to bone. He tried to draw in a breath, and his ribs screamed in protest.

_What the fuck? He had changed back._

“Sha—” he couldn’t breathe. The rain was excruciating. The crash of thunder and the great squid’s roars rang in his ears. Boiling green filled his vision. “Sha. . .shazam,” his voice was barely a whisper, but it was enough. A bolt of lightning struck him in the back, and he could breathe again.

Billy was flying, cape fluttering in the wind behind him. He skated along the surface of the sea for a few feet, leaving waves in his wake, before turning sharply upwards and skyrocketing back into the storm.

 

Billy scanned the clouds, searching, as he wove around the giant squid’s reaching tentacles. There. A splash of red. Superman’s cape. Wrapped in one of the squid's tentacles, he was being drawn towards the creature’s massive body. Billy zipped towards them, paying mind to the ball lightning exploding around him. A tentacle tried to grab him, and he dove over it. He saw Superman struggling futilely in the giant squid’s hold as it drew him towards its gaping, beaked mouth.

“Superman!” Billy shouted. He flew straight at the squid’s maw, and rammed shoulder first into the upper part of its great beak. The snap as the front part of the beak broke off was loud and terrible in his ears, like the breaking of a bone. “Sorry,” he winced. His useless apology was drowned out by the giant squid’s shriek. It flung Superman away as it wreathed in pain. Billy dove after him. “Gotcha!” he shouted as he caught the other hero.

“The door!” Superman shouted in his ear, gripping his shoulders tightly. Billy could barely hear him over the giant squid’s pained cries. The sound made Billy’s gut tighten with guilt. He nodded jerkily.

 

Billy did his best to tune out the creature’s cries and instead focus on the pull of that invisible string. He followed it through the sky, easily bobbing and weaving between the squid’s tentacles, which were no longer pursuing them but flailing in blind pain. Thankfully, it did not take long to reach their destination. The door looked just like the first, but it was floating horizontally hundreds of feet in the air in the middle of a storm.

Billy set them down on the narrow doorframe, and two golden symbols appeared on its surface—two of the symbols used to enter the Rock of Eternity. Immediately, a sense of peace washed over Billy. He could no longer feel the bite of the acid rain, and the roaring of the storm seemed muffled and distant.

He moved to wrap his hand around the doorknob, floating parallel just above the door. He glanced up at Superman, who was holding onto Billy’s white cape as he balanced on the doorframe, before pulling the door open. It opened onto fields of white snow and, more importantly, a blue sky with a yellow sun. Superman tumbled through it immediately. Billy glanced up one last time. The great squid had stopped shrieking and flailing. He hoped it would recover.

 

He followed Superman through the door, and was arrested with a strange sense of vertigo as gravity suddenly pushed on him from a different direction. He fell onto his stomach onto not snow but white sand. He rolled over onto his back, thought about sitting up but didn’t. He was too tired. Instead he laid there and stared up at the pale blue sky with not one but two yellow suns.

Billy started to laugh. “Cap?” Superman questioned. Billy looked over at the other hero laying beside him. He looked terrible. His face was completely red with burns and oozing blood in places. “What is it?” He asked. He looked horrific, but for some awful reason Billy’s response was to laugh harder. He didn’t know why he was laughing. It was nothing. It was everything. All he could think to do to express it was to point up at the sky with its twin yellow suns.

Superman breathed a chuckle of his own. “We made it,” he bumped Billy’s shoulder with a loose fist. A soft breeze blew the white sands along the dunes. The yellow suns warmed them and everything. Billy’s laughter lost its hysterical edge.

“Yeah,” he grinned. It wasn’t home, but it was one step closer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So yeah, I made up this dimension. A red sun causing Superman to loose his powers is from the comics and cartoons. Shazam being able to be forcefully changed back into Billy by a strong lightning/electrical blast is something I read in an article talking about Shazam's powers and weaknesses. I have no idea if it's actually true, I have no references of it happening in the comics. For this chapter, I'm saying that a strong lightning strike directly to his heart can force him to change back (or that it's a special property of the lightning of the dimension they were in).
> 
> I hope y'all enjoyed this chapter, and would love to hear what you thought!!


	4. Wandering Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Billy and Superman trek across the desert of a distant alien world, and consider just how it is they're going to make it back home.

Billy slept and dreamed strange dreams.

He sat in the dining room at home. “All hands on deck,” Victor called, and Billy didn’t hesitate to place his hand in the middle with the others. He looked around at his family with a smile on his face as the warmth of belonging bloomed in his chest. An extra hand was laid on top of his. Billy looked over and noticed for the first time that Superman, in full cape and costume, was sitting beside him. This did not strike him as odd.

“Thank you for flying, super-strength, laser eyes, and the yellow suns which bring those back,” Superman said.

“Hut!” Billy and everyone else chanted, taking their hands from the huddle and sitting back down. They began to eat, and no one questioned Superman’s presence. When he asked, Mary passed Superman the lasagna dish without comment.

 

The doorbell rang. In an instant, Billy was at the door and pulling it open. On the porch, stood the Wizard with Lady Blaze and Lord Satanus on either side of him. The Wizard was dressed in slacks and a sweater vest, Lord Satanus in khakis and a polo, and Lady Blaze in a knee-length floral dress. “We’re the new family that just moved in. Thought we’d pop by to say hello,” the Wizard said smiling, but everything about him felt fake and wrong.

A knot of unease formed in Billy’s gut. He could no longer hear the cheerful chatter of his family from the dining room. Lady Blaze smiled widely, like one of Darla’s Barbie dolls, and presented a casserole dish to him. The deep dish was filled with bloody viscera, a human eye stared up at Billy from the gore. It blinked at him. Billy stumbled back with a shout. He tripped and began to fall.

 

... With a sharp intake of breath, Billy’s eyes snapped open. He blinked his eyes rapidly against the glaring light, and thought Rosa or Victor had turned the lights on in his and Freddy’s room. He kicked his legs—bulky, cumbersome legs. His brow furrowed at the way the ground gave way. Not his mattress. And his body. . .he moved his arm up to shield his eyes, and blinked them open to stare up at a man’s hand. He was in his superhero form. Why was he. . . ?

“You alright, Captain?” Superman asked. Billy looked over at the other hero laying next to him on the dunes of white sands, and the fog of confusion lifted from his mind as their situation came rushing back to him.

“Yeah, yeah, just. . .weird dream,” he replied. A dream which was already fading from his mind, leaving only vague distorted images and a feeling of unease. “How long was I out?” he asked, more than happy to let the remaining vestiges of his dream slip away as he focused on the here and now. He hadn’t even known he could sleep in his superhero form let alone dream. He had never stayed transformed long enough to find out.

 

“A couple hours at least. I dozed off for awhile myself,” Superman replied as he pushed himself up into a sitting position. “With how little the suns have moved, I’m thinking the days here are longer.”

Billy looked up at the twin suns still hanging high overhead in the pale sky. “That’s good though, right? Means you’ll have plenty of time to soak up the rays,” he looked up at Superman. “You’re already looking better.” The burns on his face were by no means fully healed, but they were no longer an angry red and none of them were weeping blood.

“The suns are certainly doing the trick. I’m feeling stronger,” Superman stated, flexing his arms.

“They should’ve called you Plantman or, or Photosynthesisman,” Billy snorted, a smile pulling at his lips. “No, wait!” Billy sat up, snapping his fingers, “Solarman, that’s the one.”

Superman huffed and rolled his eyes. “I think I’ll stick with what I’ve got, but thank you for the suggestions, Captain Sparklefingers.”

 

“You’re looking better as well,” Superman commented. “Your suit seems to have repaired itself, and the burns on your face are healing, though I didn’t think the acid rain could physically harm you.”

“Huh?” Billy’s brow furrowed as he reached up to cautiously poke at his face. The skin did feel tender. He hadn’t really noticed before because he ached pretty much everywhere. He looked down at himself, and noted that the damage his suit had suffered in Hell was gone. It looked new and shiny as if it had come straight from the superhero dry cleaners. “Must be because I changed back,” he mused. Would be nice if the switch also fixed the damage to his body as well as the suit.

“Changed back?” Superman asked.

“Oh um. . .” for a second Billy scrambled for a lie, but then decided there was no reason not to tell Superman the truth—or at least part of it. “Well you see I’m not normally like this. I was just a normal. . .man, until this Wizard snatched me off the subway, and said I had to say a certain word, so he could pass his powers to me. I thought he was a crazy hobo. I just went along with it to try and calm him down. I didn’t think anything would really happen, but then I said it and—bam! I turned all buff and stuff.”

Superman was nodding. “And now saying this word allows you to switch between your superhero identity and your civilian identity.”

“Exactly!” Billy beamed, glad that he was understanding.

 

“Y’know, maybe they should start calling you He-Man,” Superman grinned.

“He-Man?” Billy blinked, confused by the seeming non sequitur.

“Because you go ‘by the power of Grayskull,’” Superman said as if that explained anything.

“I. . .you’ve lost me,” Billy shook his head.

“You didn’t watch He-Man and the Masters of the Universe growing up?” he asked.

“Oh, that old cartoon,” Billy’s eyes widened with understanding. “Nope,” he stated, popping the ‘p’.

“It was good,” Superman said, with a nostalgic smile. “What shows did you watch growing up?”

 

“Um. . .” Billy’s mind went blank as he tried to come up with a show that was not only old enough for someone who looked to be in their twenties or thirties to have watched as a kid, but also one which he had actually seen. Once again, he decided the truth was simpler than a lie. “I don’t, didn’t, really watch TV. Foster care. I moved around a bunch, wasn’t really time, were more important things.” Like looking for his mom, like looking for his next meal.

“But you found a place to stay. You have a home, a family to get back to,” Superman said.

“Yeah, I have a home. I have a family,” Billy stated, almost reverently. It was still such a novel concept.

 

He shook his head. “You have people to get back to, too.”

“My mom and my fiancé—Lois,” Superman replied, he smiled so softly when he said her name.

Billy grinned, he rocked forward on his legs, “Ooh, a fiancé! How did you propose?”

“I came back from the dead,” Superman replied with a wry smile which quickly disappeared, “I had the whole thing planned out, but Lois found the ring while I was. . .I still tried to do something special to celebrate her accepting.”

“What did you do?” Billy asked a touch cautiously, aware that the whole being dead thing was probably a touchy subject.

“I cooked her dinner and bought her flowers,” he answered.

“And here I was expecting some grand gesture—like, I don’t know, flying her to Paris or Venice or something,” Billy commented.

“I didn’t say where we had dinner,” Superman said with a grin.

Billy laughed and stood up. “Well are you ready to get moving so we can get you back to your lady love?” he asked, offering Superman a hand.

“More than ready,” Superman clasped his hand, and Billy pulled him to his feet. Billy hissed and wrapped his free arm around his chest when the action caused pain to flare up along his ribs. “Captain?” Superman let go of his hand to instead grab his shoulder. “What’s wrong?”

 

After years living in the foster system and on the streets, Billy’s first instinct was to deny and hide the injury. He pushed that instinct down. He remembered Superman apologizing for hiding how the red sun was affecting him. “Think I might’ve cracked a few ribs,” Billy answered. He recognized the pain of cracked ribs. Still, he tried prodding at his chest even though the thick material of his suit didn’t really allow for any sort of examination.

“Here, let me,” Superman gently batted his hand side. He then—stared, very intently, at Billy’s chest.

“Don’t cut me half,” Billy commented as he fought the urge to fidget.

“Won’t,” Superman huffed absently, still focusing. A moment later he blinked and looked up at Billy’s face. “Looks like you cracked two ribs, there’s soft tissue damage as well, but no internal bleeding. Is this from when you changed back?”

“And Lord Satanus,” Billy nodded. “He knocked me pretty good in chest, but I was okay. I think changing back like I did aggravated it.”

 

“Why did you change back during the storm?” Superman asked.

“Oh, I didn’t mean to. When I change there’s this lightning that hits me that causes the transformation, but during the storm I was hit by the ball lightning, and it forced me to change back,” Billy looked down, his voice dropping to a whisper, “I didn’t know something like that could happen. . .there’s a lot of things I don’t know about these powers.”

Superman gave his shoulder a light squeeze. Billy looked up at him. “You’ll figure it out, and you don’t have to do it alone. You’ve got your family, the other heroes in Philadelphia—and you’ve got me to,” Superman stated.

Billy ducked his head, blinking his suddenly misty eyes. Just a few months ago he was alone and had been alone for so long. It was strange and wonderful to suddenly have so many people who cared about him. He cleared his throat. “Th-thanks,” he said, praying Superman wouldn’t comment on how choked his voice sounded. He didn’t.

 

“Which way, Captain?” he asked instead.

Billy considered that for a moment before turning in a half circle. “That way,” he nodded in the direction the suns were slowly moving in. They started walking, not flying, across the white dunes.

“You got your x-ray vision back,” Billy commented as they hiked up one of the dunes. It wasn’t exactly easy going. His boots sunk into the sand with each step he took, and while Billy was grateful to the suns for allowing Superman to regain his powers there was no denying that they made the planet _hot._

Superman nodded. “My senses are mostly back to normal, unsurprisingly, as enhanced senses were the first of my powers to develop.”

“How old were you?” Billy asked. He had to be careful with his breathing as breathing too deeply irritated his ribs.

“Pretty young. Elementary school,” Superman shrugged.

“Wow, that must’ve made growing up tough,” Billy commented.

“I didn’t make a lotta friends I can tell you that,” Superman laughed, but it was tinged with old hurt.

“Really?” Billy’s eyes widened. It was strange to think of _Superman_ having trouble fitting in with his peers, of him not being popular, of him being bullied. “I would’ve thought Superman would be Mr. Popular.”

“I wasn’t Superman then,” he snorted. “I was just different. I tried to hide it, but my classmates still picked up on it, and I’m sure you know how kids treat those who are different.”

“Oh, I know,” Billy huffed, frowning.

 

He thought about Freddy and the stupid fucking Breyer brothers. Billy could have helped him get them off his back by showing up to lunch as his superhero self, but he hadn’t and things had gotten worse for Freddy at school since then. It had all been happening too fast. Freddy was getting too close too quick, and Billy hadn’t been ready to call him brother.

So Billy did what he did best—he ran away, and in the process Freddy had gotten hurt. Billy hadn’t meant to hurt him. He still hadn’t figured out how to make it up to Freddy. When he tried bringing it up, Freddy brushed it off like it was nothing. But it wasn’t nothing. Billy had let him down and that, that wasn’t okay. That wasn’t the kind of brother Billy wanted to be.

 

They made it to the top of the dune, and Billy paused to look around. All he could see was rolling sand unto the horizon. The suns beat down relentlessly, sweat trickled down his neck. “Can you see anything other than sand, or is that all there is here?” Billy asked, kicking at the ground petulantly, and then feeling silly as he watched the grains breeze pointlessly through the air. He sighed. He’d figure out how to make things up to Freddy. Just had to get home first.

Superman squinted at the horizon. “Looks like there’s a large plateau formed from some sort of blue rock or crystal several miles away and maybe some shrubbery too.”

“Ooh, shrubbery. I will try to contain my excitement,” Billy stated dryly. Superman looked over at him with narrowed eyes. Billy ignored the look and asked, “So is flying still out of the question or. . . ?”

“It is,” he nodded. “Though I could probably leap a tall building in a single bound, in fact. . .” Superman smirked at him before bending his knees and leaping into the air.

“Hey!” Billy sputtered as he was sprayed by the sand kicked up by the other hero’s jump. He heard the boom as Superman landed on a dune perhaps half a mile away. “Give a guy some warning,” Billy grumbled and jumped after him.

 

He landed on the dune next to Superman with a muted thump. Billy yelped as he sunk down into the sand. Loosing his balance, he fell forward and caught himself on his hands, wincing slightly at the pain which flared in his ribs. Beside him, Superman started to chuckle. Billy smiled as an idea occurred to him. “Ow!” he exclaimed as he fell over onto his side with an arm wrapped about his chest. “Ah, shoot!” he rolled over onto his back.

“Captain!” Superman was knelt at his side in an instant. “Hold on, you’re gonna be—” Billy grabbed a handful of sand and threw it in his face. “Why?” Superman spluttered, spitting sand out of his mouth.

“Revenge!” Billy giggled, delighted that he had been able to catch Superman so off guard that he didn’t dodge.

“Are you five?” Superman asked. There was no anger in the question. He was laughing too.

“Heh, maybe,” Billy shrugged, grinning even as his stomach twisted.

 

Billy wondered how Superman would react if he learned Billy was actually fourteen. Would he be mad? Upset that Billy hadn’t told him sooner? It wasn’t like Billy was lying to him. . .exactly. What business of Superman’s was it anyway? His real age was part of his secret identity, and he was under no obligation to tell Superman his civilian identity.

Wasn’t like him being fourteen changed anything. He was still him, was still a hero, and he could handle himself just fine. He didn’t need Superman making a big deal out of nothing, didn’t want him to start treating him differently.

Superman treated him like an equal. Billy was used to being treated like a problem, a nuisance. He didn’t want to loose Superman’s respect or his—his friendship. If they were even friends. Billy thought maybe they were. He also thought it was probably a rather childish thing to even wonder about. Did adults think about making friends? Probably not. Probably too busy thinking about taxes and other adult shit.

 

A thoughtful look passed across Superman’s face, and Billy suddenly worried he’d said too much, but the look was gone as quickly as it came. Superman shook his head and smiled. “Come on then, if you’re not actually dying,” he said, standing up.

“Not dying,” Billy snorted. He pushed off the ground and hovered weightlessly to his feet.

Superman grinned. “Then try and keep up!” he exclaimed before leaping for the next dune.

“Oh, it is on!” Billy laughed, bounding after him.

 

* * *

 

With twin booms, Billy and Superman landed on a low dune at the base of the plateau miles from where they had started out. “Hey, look!” Billy called, pointing through the cloud of falling sand kicked up by their landing. “Shrubbery!” Billy half jogged, half slid to the cluster of scraggly, pale green bushes clinging to the downward slope of the dune. Some of them were blooming with tiny red flowers, a sudden splash of color in the otherwise colorless desert. He glanced back in the direction they had come from. “I can’t believe you spotted these from so far away.”

“Twenty thousand/twenty thousand vision remember?” Superman grinned as he came to stand beside him. His breathing was slightly labored, and Billy was reminded that he was still recovering from the effects of the red sun.

Billy looked up at the cliff face of the plateau, which was really a much more impressive sight than the shrubs. It jutted up from the ground and straight up into the sky like a wall. It was colored in several shades of blue and slightly translucent. It looked like ice. Billy hovered forward to lay a bare hand on its surface just to confirm: the stone or crystal, whatever it was, was smooth and warm.

Billy stepped back and looked around – left, right, up – in every direction the cliff extended as far as he could see. It was so tall it blotted out the two suns and cast him and Superman into shadows. While that meant it was cooler, Billy hoped the lack of direct exposure to the suns wouldn’t affect Superman’s recovery.

 

“So how tall is it?” he asked.

Superman glanced at him then looked up. “Taller than a tall building. You’re gonna have to help me to the top,” he sighed.

“Right,” Billy nodded absently as he wandered along the wall to the left. The magical string wasn’t pulling him up the wall. It was pulling him—“Or maybe we can walk through,” he said gesturing to a narrow opening in the cliff face.

Superman came to stand beside him, brow furrowing as he gazed into the mouth of a slot canyon. “We don’t know how far it goes. We could get stuck or lost.”

“We won’t, trust me,” Billy stated confidently. This was the way they should go. He knew it.

Superman looked at him. He nodded. “Lead the way, Captain.”

 

Billy had to twist slightly to the side to fit his broad shoulders through the slim opening. As they maneuvered through the tight, weaving canyon, Billy was made acutely aware of how much bulkier his superhero form was than his regular self. At one point, the canyon became so narrow that they had to turn fully parallel and slowly shuffle along for about twenty feet.

“Hope you’re not claustrophobic,” Billy called. He wasn’t particularly so himself – it was crowds of people he didn’t like – but even he was feeling a growing swell of panic as he found it difficult to catch his breath as the walls of the canyon pressed against his chest and back.

“Maybe a little,” Superman called back, voice strained. The walls of the canyon were pressed so close that Billy didn’t even have the room needed to turn his head around to look back and check up on the other hero. It was then that Billy really wanted to shout ‘Shazam.’ The canyon would be so much easier to get through as a scrawny teenager rather than a buff adult superhero.

 

“Regretting listening to me?” Billy replied with forced cheer as he navigated around a sharp bend in the canyon.

“Maybe a little,” Superman grunted.

“Looks like it starts to open up here ahead,” Billy commented, grimacing as a jut of crystal jabbed him painfully in the side. What he said was true. After a few more long minutes of shuffling along the canyon began to widen, and they were able to walk comfortably single file. Not much later, the canyon opened up enough so that they could easily walk side by side.

Now that he wasn’t being squished, Billy was able to look around and actually appreciate the beauty of the canyon. Smooth and wavy and colored in a variety of blue tints, the canyon walls looked like twin frozen rivers. Sunlight spilled down from above. It refracted about the crystal canyon, jumping from wall to wall before finally pooling in the white sands coating the ground.

 

Billy glanced at Superman. He still seemed tense. His jaw clenched. “All this crystal remind you of home?” Billy asked, hoping to distract him from the whole small enclosed space thing.

“Sorry?” Superman looked at him, brow furrowed.

“Y’know, bit like the Fortress of Solitude,” Billy explained.

“The—oh! That’s just something the comics made up,” he replied.

“Wait. The Fortress of Solitude isn’t real? What about the Batcave? Is it real?” Billy demanded.

“Batcave’s real,” Superman snorted. They came to a fork in the canyon. “Captain?”

Billy nodded to the right, and they headed down that path. “So, do you not have a lair?”

“Isn’t having a lair kinda a villain thing?” he replied.

“No, the Batcave’s a lair,” Billy snapped defensively.

Superman looked at him, amusement dancing in his eyes, “do you have a lair?”

“Yes, and it’s very cool!” Billy huffed. “And if these doors work the way I think they do, it’s how we’ll be getting home.”

“How do you think the doors work?” Superman asked seriously.

 

“Well, you’ve noticed the symbols, right? The door in Hell had one, and the door in Lisa Frank Land had two,” Billy began. Superman nodded. He continued, “Well, to enter the lair, or the Rock of Eternity as the Wizard called it, you use seven symbols. With each door, I think we’re going to gain a symbol till we have all seven. And the lair is filled with all these doors leading to weird places, so it makes sense.”

“That means we’re going to have to go through five more doors and four more worlds to make it back,” Superman commented.

Billy nodded, gesturing with his hands as he spoke, “it’s kinda like we’re on a magical subway system with the Rock of Eternity being the last stop.”

“Do you know the seven symbols? At the next door could you not just add the missing symbols?” he asked.

 

“Maybe,” Billy replied dubiously. “I mean, I think I remember them, but some of them are pretty complex, and if I miss even one detail. . .” he could ruin what might be their only chance at getting home. He shook his head, “usually, if I want to go to the Rock of Eternity I just need to grab a door knob, and think about going there and the symbols appear. Then, ta-da! door no longer leads to the bathroom but to an ancient magical lair. I don’t know why the doors we’re going through now are taking us to other places instead of back to the Rock of Eternity. I don’t know what will happen if I try messing with them. I don’t. . .I don’t think I should.”

 

“Then we won’t try that,” Superman stated. “Seven different dimensions: will make a helluva story when we get back,” he grinned.

A smile slowly spread across Billy face. “Freddy’s gonna be so jealous.”

“Lois is gonna call dibs on the scoop,” Superman commented.

“’dibs on the scoop’?” he repeated.

“We’re reporters,” he answered.

Billy didn’t miss the ‘we’ part. He realized that Superman had given him enough information that with a little digging once they got home Billy could figure out his civilian identity. Billy also knew that he wouldn’t be doing any digging no matter how curious he was. If he did find out, it would be because Superman trusted him enough to tell him; otherwise, he wouldn’t betray the trust Superman did have in him by prying.

 

Suddenly, Superman straightened with a sharp inhalation of breath. “What is it?” Billy asked.

“Screams,” he answered. He was already moving, running faster than any normal man. “There’s a child.” Billy’s eyes widened. He ran after Superman, easily keeping up with his faster than lightning pace, and in less than a second he could hear the screams too:

_“Papa!”_

_“Phryn!”_

_“Run!”_

Soon, they arrived at the scene. Billy’s eyes darted around, quickly taking in the situation. There were three reptilian humanoids, two adults and one child, in lightly colored loose fitting clothing. They were being attacked by a pack of scraggly canine creatures with bluish white fur. The three had been separated.

One of the adults and the child were being pressed back towards the canyon wall as two of the canines advanced on them. The second adult was on the ground several feet away, clawing uselessly at the sand as one of the canines dragged them away from the others by the leg.

“Utum! Take Ooma—ru _-ah!_ ” the adult’s voice devolved into a pained shriek as the canine gave their leg a vicious shake, splattering the white sands with blood, a splash of red that wasn’t beautiful like the wildflowers had been.

“Papa!” the child, Ooma, screamed clinging to the other adult’s, Utum’s, skirts as the pair continued to back away from the creatures advancing on them. Their backs hit the canyon wall. Nowhere left to flee.

 

Another of the canines went for the father’s throat at the same time that the creatures which had been hemming in Utum and Ooma lunged at the pair. Billy zipped towards the pair, bodychecking the canine closest to him and knocking it into its fellow. A whirlwind, created by Superman, lifted the canine going for the father’s throat off its feet and flung it into the canyon wall.

Snarling, the two Billy had slammed into rolled to their feet. “Get away!” Billy shouted, firmly placing himself between the canines and Utum and Ooma. The braver of the two canines snapped at him. Billy shot lightning at the ground in front of it. It fell back with a surprised cry. “Go on!” he shot lightning at the ground again. The two canines retreated back a few paces, growling warily.

 

Meanwhile, Superman had bounded to the father’s side. The canine had released its hold on the father’s leg to snarl and snap at him. Superman easily avoided the creature’s blood stained teeth, and grabbed it by the scruff of its neck. He tossed it several yards down the canyon. Whimpering, the canine rolled to its feet, and ran off with its tail between its legs.

The two still growling in front of Billy looked over at the fleeing canine. They glanced back at Billy. “Go on!” he shouted, lightning dancing between his fingers in warning. The two ran off after the other one, and Billy let his hands fall to his sides with a relieved sigh.

 

“Phryn!” Utum pushed past Billy and ran towards the father.

“I’m sorry, Momma. It’s all my fault,” Ooma cried, running after Utum. Billy followed after the pair, arm wrapped loosely around his aching ribs.

“Hush, sweet girl,” Utum said as she knelt beside Superman and Phryn. Superman was applying pressure to the father’s thigh to try and stem the bleeding, but when Utum pushed at his hands he backed off. “Papa will be fine,” she told Ooma as she inspected the injury.

It looked bad. Blood pooled from several deep punctures and gouges. From a particularly nasty gash, he could see bone. The kid could see it too. “Papa,” Ooma wept, covering her face with her hands.

“H-hey,” Billy laid a hand on her shoulder after a moment of hesitation. “You heard your mom.” His eyes flicked to Utum to see that she had pulled a roll of cloth bandages from her robes. “He’s gonna be fine.”

Ooma looked up at him, tears flowing down her scaled cheeks, and her completely black eyes shinning like marbles. “What if he’s not? It’s all my fault,” her voice warbled.

Billy glanced at Superman for direction, but the other hero was watching the exchange with a puzzled furrow to his brow which Billy didn’t understand and didn’t have the time to dwell on. He turned his attention back to the crying little girl. She looked no older than Darla.

 

“He will be,” Billy reassured, though he was really in no position to be making such promises. “Now chin up.” He reached out and gently wiped the tears from Ooma’s cheeks. There were slightly raised ridges along her cheekbones. They were much more pronounced in her parents, with short spikes growing from the ridges around their eyes. The parents also had horns protruding from the undersides of their jaws and the crowns of their heads. It made for a rather intimidating appearance. “We have to be strong, so we can help your parents. Right?”

“Right!” Ooma clenched her hands into tiny clawed fists. Billy smiled and gave her shoulder a pat before turning his attention to the others.

 

Superman had lifted Phryn’s leg, making it easier for Utum to wrap the injury. “We need to get Papa back to camp, so Momma can heal him,” Ooma stated.

Utum nodded as she tied off the bandage. “There’s nothing more I can do here.”

“Where’s your camp?” Billy asked her.

“An oasis just outside the canyon,” she answered. “It’s not far, but with Phryn in the condition he is moving him will be—”

“Leave that to us,” Billy grinned. He lifted Phryn into his arms as gently as he could, but still the man groaned in pain. “Sorry, mister,” he winced as he stood.

“You got him?” Superman asked. Billy nodded.

“This way,” Utum said, scooping Ooma into her arms before starting to run down the canyon. Billy and Superman followed her, Billy choosing to fly to make things smoother for the injured Phryn. He noted that they were still heading in the direction of the next door.

 

Ooma gasped as she watched him fly. She patted her mom’s shoulder and pointed at him. Utum looked over at them, dark eyes widening. “Who are you?” she asked, her tone suggesting that what she really wanted to ask was ‘ _what_ are you?’

“I’m Superman. He’s Captain Sp—”

“Just Captain,” Billy interrupted.

“We’re. . .not from around here,” Superman said. Billy was glad that whatever had thrown him off earlier seemed to have passed.

“Where are you from? I’ve never seen your like,” Utum said.

“Another world,” Billy stated bluntly. He glanced at Superman with a grin, “seems we’re both aliens now.”

“You’re Starpeople?” Ooma gasped, awed.

“Uh, sure,” Billy shrugged.

 

* * *

 

They soon made it out of the canyon and to the desert on the other side of the plateau. There were no rolling dunes on this side, instead the sand had been blown into a relatively flat sheet. In the distance, smaller rock formations of the same material as the plateau jutted up from the flat ground. Much closer, there was the oasis. It wasn’t nearly as impressive as Billy had been imaging. Just a small, shallow pool of water surrounded by a few trees with thick leaves like those of a succulent.

Utum led them to where their camp was set up in the shade of a couple of the trees. “Lay him down there,” she gestured to one of three bedrolls. Billy did as she instructed, laying Phryn down as carefully as he could.

“Is there anything else we can do to help?” Superman asked as Utum grabbed a pack from where it had been sitting on a wooden sled.

“Fill those with water,” she nodded to a stack of five clay bowls sitting next to an unlit firepit. She set the pack down next to the bedroll and began to dig through it.

“I’ll help!” Ooma snatched up the stack of bowls. It wobbled dangerously.

“Careful,” Superman lifted the three bowls from the top.

 

The trio walked the few paces to the pool’s edge. Superman handed Billy one of the bowls, and they went about filling them. The pool was so shallow that Billy couldn’t fully submerge the bowl. “It’s drying up. Soon this place will be gone,” Ooma commented. Billy frowned. If this was their home what would that mean for them? “I wandered off. I knew I wasn’t supposed to, but I wanted to explore the canyon, and now Papa is hurt because of me.”

“It’s not your fault,” Billy said, a knee-jerk response.

“But it is,” Ooma insisted.

“You made a mistake. We all make mistakes. Beating yourself up about it won’t change what happened. Learn from the mistakes you make, so you can do better in the future,” Superman stated.

Ooma looked up at him. “You’ve made mistakes?”

“I still make mistakes,” he said with a smile.

 

They finished filling the bowls and carried them back to Utum, setting them down next to her. She had unwrapped Phryn’s leg and was spreading a yellow paste over the wound. Phryn groaned in pain. “Papa!” Ooma grabbed his hand, clutching it in both of hers.

“Ooma,” Phyrn mumbled, his eyes partly opening. He smiled weakly. “You’re safe—good.”

“Captain,” Utum called

“Yes, ma’am?” Billy replied.

“Can you get a fire going, pour the water from one of the bowls into the kettle, and start it boiling?” she asked.

“You got it,” he nodded as he picked up one of the bowls.

“I’ll start the fire,” Superman said, following him over to the firepit.

 

The kettle was hanging from a spit over the unlit pit. Billy took the kettle off the spit, poured the water into it, and rehung it. There was already kindling in the pit which Superman lit using his heat vision. “It’s strange that they speak English,” Billy commented as he watched the orange flames dance.

“They don’t,” Superman stated.

Billy looked up at him. “What?”

“They aren’t speaking English,” he repeated.

“Then how. . . ?” Billy’s brow furrowed.

“My suit is equipped with an old Kryptonian universal translator,” Superman answered. “It was activated when they started speaking. However, whatever language they’re speaking, it’s not one the translator was familiar with. It took a moment for it to have collected a big enough language sample to analyze, so it could start understanding and translating. But you. . .”

“I understood immediately. I didn’t even realize they’re speaking another language,” Billy said.

“More than that, you’re speaking their language,” he said.

“Wha—” Billy’s eyes widened. “But that’s—” he shook his head. “I, I guess I just discovered another superpower.” He wondered what Freddy would dub this ability: superspeak, superunderstanding, supertranslating?

“A very handy ability to have,” Superman commented.

Billy snorted, “then why am I failing French class?”

 

Ooma trotted up to them. “Momma says to pour this into the kettle, and stir it occasionally,” she said, handing Billy a small pouch.

Billy opened the pouch and peeked inside. It was about a fourth full of dried yellow flowers with a pungent smell. “What are they?” he asked as he poured the contents of the pouch into the kettle.

“Olea, a healing plant,” Ooma answered. “You’ll know the tea is done when it starts to sing.”

“To sing?” Billy exclaimed, baffled, but Ooma had already bounded back to her father’s side.

“We’ll find out soon enough,” Superman said, picking up a long wooden spoon and stirring the contents of the kettle.

 

Perhaps five minutes later, the tea did begin not to sing but to hum, a deep continuous sound. “Whoa, do you hear that?” Billy gasped.

“I do,” Superman replied. Of course he heard it. The humming continued, clear and pronounced.

“Hey, Utum, the tea’s humming,” he called.

“Good, it’s finished,” she stated, standing up and walking to the firepit. She took three clay cups and poured the tea into them. “Here. Drink,” she said, handing a cup each to Superman and Billy.

“Ma’am?” Superman asked.

Utum glanced between them, assessing. “You both look in need of some healing,” she stated before heading back to Phryn with the last cup.

 

Billy looked down at the cup in his hand. The tea was a deep amber and was still humming, causing the cup to vibrate in his grip. With a shrug, he took a large gulp, grimacing as he swallowed. It tasted bitter, and still hummed and vibrated on its way down his throat. He felt the vibrating in his chest and ribs, but instead of being painful it was actually soothing. “Verdict?” Superman asked, having not taken a single sip of his own tea.

“It tastes terrible, but I think it might actually be helping,” Billy answered. He pinched his nose and downed the rest of the tea in two quick gulps.

Superman started drinking his own tea, also grimacing after the first sip. “Could definitely do with some sweetener.”

 

Billy and Superman joined Utum and Ooma around Phryn’s bedroll. “Thanks for the tea,” Billy commented as he plopped down in the sand.

Phryn was sitting up and drinking his tea with Utum’s help. He shook his head and spoke softly, “ _thank you._ If not for your arrival. . .”

“We’re happy we were there to help,” Superman stated.

“What will you do now?” Utum asked.

“Continue our journey home,” Superman answered.

“Will you guys be okay here?” Billy asked. Thinking about how the oasis was drying up, and how the pack of those canine things might find them again.

Phryn sighed, “the time has come for us to move on as well.”

“Where will you go?” Billy asked.

“Wherever the shifting sands cast us,” Utum shrugged.

Billy glanced at Superman, a question in his eyes. The other hero nodded before turning back to the couple. “Why don’t we travel together, at least for the time being?”

They considered this for a moment before nodding in agreement.

 

* * *

 

It was decided that there was no time like the present, and they immediately started packing up the camp. Phryn, still too hurt to walk, was moved to lay on the sled with one of the packs as a pillow. Soon, they left the withering oasis, and walked out into the desert in the direction Billy indicated. They all carried packs, though Ooma’s was much smaller than the rest, and Superman pulled the sled Phryn was laying on.

They walked till the towering plateau which held the canyon disappeared over the horizon. They walked till night replaced day. Billy gazed up at the sky studded with unfamiliar stars, so bright and clear with no light pollution to hinder them. There were three moons, one much large than the other two. Billy felt incredibly small staring up at the vast alien sky and knowing it was just a sliver of the enormity of the universe.

 

“How far are we?” Superman asked, keeping his voice down. Ooma had joined her father on the sled, both were asleep.

“Close,” Billy answered. The pull was growing strong. “You may be able to spot it.” Soon he and Superman would be another step closer to home, but Utum and her family. . . “I’m sorry you had to leave your home, Utum.”

“My home?” she looked over at him, head tilted to the side.

“The oasis,” he replied.

“The oasis wasn’t home but a fleeting refuge. Those places are temporary, springing up in the desert at random only to then dry up and be reclaimed by the sands just as randomly. No, my home is right here, you saved them,” she gestured to Phryn and Ooma sleeping curled up on the sled. “It matters not where we are, as long as we are together we are home.”

 

Superman gasped. “There. . .there’s another oasis less than a mile from us. I swear it wasn’t there a second ago.”

“It probably wasn’t,” Utum stated.

Billy squinted at the horizon. He could vaguely make out a clustered shape in the distance that hadn’t been there last he looked. “I bet the door is there.”

Perhaps half an hour later they arrived at the oasis. It was much more what Billy imagined when he heard the word. There was a large clear pond which reflected the light of the three moons. Surrounding the pond, were over two dozen of those over sized succulent plants. The door was there just as Billy had expected. It was in the center of the pond, it bottom edge hovering right above the surface of the water.

 

“This is where we part ways,” Utum stated, staring at the door. Billy had mentioned the doors to her earlier as they had been walking.

Superman nodded. “It was a pleasure meeting you and your family.”

“The pleasure was all ours,” she said. “You have already done so much, more than I could ever repay, but might I ask one more favor of you?”

“What is it?” Billy asked.

“Don’t leave just yet,” she said. “Let me wake Ooma, so she can say goodbye before you go,” she said.

“Of course,” he smiled.

 

Utum went to the sled and gently shook her daughter. “Ooma, wake up, darling girl.”

“Mm, Momma wha—” Ooma sat up straight, wide eyes shinning in the moonlight as she looked around. “Oh wow! This oasis is so big!”

“We’ve arrived at another in less than a day? That’s some luck,” Phryn, having also woken up, commented.

“It is,” she agreed. “Our new friends, the Captain and Superman, are getting ready to leave. I thought you’d like to say goodbye, Ooma.”

Ooma’s gaze snapped to them. “I don’t want you to go,” she stated as she scrambled off the sled and bounded up to them. “Must you leave?”

“We have families we need to return to,” Superman explained gently as he knelt before her.

“But we had a lot of fun getting to know you,” Billy stated, also crouching to be more at eye level with her.

Ooma’s face scrunched, like she might cry. “Thank you for saving my papa!” she exclaimed, throwing her slender arms around Billy’s neck. She let go and threw her arms around Superman. “I won’t ever forget you!”

“I doubt we’ll be forgetting you either,” Superman chuckled.

“Safe travels,” Utum said, wrapping her arms around Ooma's shoulders as her daughter stepped back towards her.

“Bye,” Billy called, waving as he and Superman walked to the pond’s edge.

“Bye bye!” Ooma waved both her arms over her head.

 

Billy smiled as he turned his attention to the door floating in the middle of the pond. His eyes widened in surprise when Superman jumped off the ground and flew to the door. “You can fly again!” he beamed, kicking off the ground and following him.

“My powers have all returned,” he replied with a smile as they both hovered before the door.

“That’s good,” Billy began as he wrapped his hand around the warm door knob. Three glowing symbols appeared just as he had predicted. “The next world might not be so friendly.” He pulled the door open, and they flew through the doorway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter turned out longer than I expected. It's the longest chapter so far. This was another world I created, pretty obviously inspired by Tatooine. The physical appearances of the alien family were inspired by Texas horned lizards. Next chapter we'll rejoin canon with a Superman villain.
> 
> I hope y'all enjoyed this chapter, and I would greatly appreciate it if you'd let me know in a comment! <3

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!!  
> You can come say 'hi' to me on Tumblr @na-na-na-batcat


End file.
